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A 

SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


BY 

PEGGY WEBLING 

AUTHOR OF “the STORY OF VIRGINIA PERFECT” 


NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
1911 






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CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 

I. New Year’s Eve . . . . i 

II. A Flower in a Ditch . . . -13 

III. Little Gus ..... 23 

IV. The Adventurers . . . -30 

V. Under the Lilac Bush . . -37 

VI. Euphrosyne and Mr Revell . . 43 

VII. A House of Gloom . . . -50 

VIII. How the Years Passed . . .62 

IX. Jules ...... 71 

X. The Pursuit of Mirth . . .78 

XL How Jules Burnt the Photographs . 90 

XII. Phosie and an Old Friend . . .101 

XIII. In Three Months . . . -113 

XIV. Through the Storm . . . .119 

XV. Good-bye to The Stroll . . .129 

XVI. A Final Rehearsal . . . .138 

XVII. The Illusive Hour . . . -151 

XVI 11 . A Trial Turn— and After . . -159 

XIX. The Starry Night . . . .173 

XX. Phosie in Love . . . . .179 

XXL Mr and Mrs Walter Race . . .191 

XXII. Vacuous Days . . . . .202 


v 


VI 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


CHAP. PAGE 

XXIII. Euphrosyne’s Garden . . .211 

XXIV. The Individuality of Jane . . 220 

XXV. Frank Race’s Story .... 230 

XXVI. A Trifle, and the Introduction of 

Mr Boyton ..... 243 

XXVII. At the Theatre .... 256 

XXVIII. Hewett Addison’s Point of View . 265 

XXIX. Once again in The Stroll . . 275 

XXX. How Phosie Heard the News . . 284 

XXXI. Light and Shadow on the Wall . 288 

XXXII. Little Gus Attains his Manhood . 296 

XXXI 11 . After many Months . . . 304 



i 


“fair and free, 

In Heav’n yclep’d Euphrosyne, 

And by men, heart-easing Mirth.” 

Milton 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


CHAPTER I 


NEW year’s eve 



ITHOUT, a cold, biting, wintry wind, which 


V V seemed to hurry up and down the narrow street 
as if it were imprisoned between the houses. 

Within, the warm, close atmosphere of a house in which 
several fires were burning and no windows open. 

Without, the fitful gleam of a hazy moon, drifting 
through grey clouds, and the glimmer of the street lamps, 
like smaller moons dropped on earth. 

Within, a steady glow from the hearth on the ground 
floor, a twinkle of a smaller fire in the room above, and the 
tiny winking light of a lowered gas-jet at the top. 

Without, the sound of the sighing wind and the flick 
of rain against the windows. 

Within, an occasional burst of talk from the kitchen in 
the basement, when the door was opened on the dark 
staircase, and the unending jingle- jangle-thump- thump- 
thump of somebody playing on an old piano. 

It was an ordinary, dull, shabby house in Airy Street, 
turning off Edgware Road. Rarely was a street so mis- 
named. All the cold winds, fogs and smells of the 
neighbourhood seemed to drift into Airy Street, but fresh 
air itself was strangely absent. 

Mrs Simmons said that the street was “ an extree- 
ordinary place for smuts,” and it gave that impression to 
strangers. The houses looked smutty; smuts gathered, 
like moths, round the gas-lamps, and even when the 


2 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


pillar-post was repainted every year its vivid scarlet was 
spoilt in a day with big, clinging smuts. 

It was a street of lodgings ; every house had its little 
card of Furnished Apartments displayed in the ground- 
floor window or in the dingy half circle of glass over the 
front door. There were trades and professions of all 
descriptions represented, from the round red lamp of a 
doctor’s surgery at one end of the street to the rickety 
square one, painted with the two words, “ Chimney 
Sweep,” at the other. 

There were several dressmakers, two piano-tuners, 
a professor of the violin and banjo, a photographer, who 
was never known to have any sitters; a metal-worker, 
who had enraged the postman by substituting for the 
number of his house the words “Ye Denne ” on a small 
copper plate; an outfitter, a watchmaker, an insurance 
agent, and any number of music teachers. 

Many of the houses were simply adorned with the 
name of the owner on a brass plate, his lodgers having to 
content themselves with much smaller plates fixed over 
their respective bells. 

This was the case at No. 77, where the single word 
“ Simmons,” nearly worn away, was to be seen on an old 
plate over the knob in the centre of the door. A caller, 
unknown to Simmons, rightly came to the conclusion 
that the knocker above was reserved for the master of 
the house, as the three small bells were each appropriated 
by other people. On the bottom one was a well-polished 
little plate showing the name “ Miss Sapio ”; over the 
next the two words “ Dovey, Cornet”; and over the 
third the somewhat puzzling inscription, “ Eddy Moore, 
the Human Eel.” 

Mr and Mrs Simmons occupied the basement and 
ground floor. Miss Sapio, who was a professional lady 
earning a fair salary, was an ideal lodger for the drawing- 
room suite. Mr and Mrs Dovey could just manage to 
hang on, as it were, by the skin of their teeth, to the two 


NEW YEAR’S EVE 


3 


rooms above. Mr Eddy Moore, or the Human Eel, was in 
sole possession of the top set, consisting of a small sitting- 
room, a bedroom behind it, and an attic, or box-room, with 
one tiny pane of glass looking out upon the upper windows 
and crowded chimneys of the neighbouring houses. 

On this particular night, when the wind rushed back- 
wards and forwards in Airy Street whining to escape, and 
the jingle-jangle-thump-thump-thump of Mr Simmons’s 
piano had been going from nine o’clock till nearly mid- 
night, Mr Eddy Moore’s apartments were absolutely 
silent and nearly dark. 

The fire in his sitting-room had died away, but his 
supper was neatly arranged on the one small table; 
bread and cheese, an old decanter holding a small 
quantity of brandy, a bottle of soda-water, a mince-pie, 
and two slices of cold plum pudding. 

There was a bunch of holly in a small vase placed in the 
centre of the table. His tobacco jar, with a canary on 
top of the lid, its yellow china plumage dulled by age, 
was ready to his hand on the mantelpiece, with his pipe 
and a box of matches. His old brown slippers had been 
placed to warm inside the fender before the fire went out. 

The gas was turned as low as possible. The second 
room— his bedroom — was in darkness. A thin shaft of 
light crept under the partially closed door of the attic. 

Such a tiny shaft of light! It was almost too feeble 
to be seen at first, failing to throw any brightness on the 
gloomy walls; but weary feet, climbing the stairs, would 
instantly have trodden into the faint path it made across 
the floor. Tired eyes, thus attracted, would have in- 
stinctively turned towards the nearly closed door. Any 
human being, if only for an idle minute, would have 
wondered what was to be seen within the room — a 
student, bending over his books and working late into 
the last hours of the dying year; or a woman, watching 
at the bedside of one who suffered; or a beggarly miser, 
counting his silver and pence with untiring greed? 


4 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


None of these things were to be seen within the room. 
It was bare and curtainless ; the old green blind, being a 
little small even for the tiny pane, was framed in a narrow 
strip of grey light from without; the gas jet was turned 
almost as low as in the sitting-room; there were the 
shadowy outlines of several pieces of furniture — a chair, 
a little chest of drawers with a fixed looking-glass on top, 
a jug and basin on an equally diminutive washing-stand 
— and, facing the window, undet the slope of the roof, a 
bedstead with knobs at each corner. The knobs looked 
big and black and seemed to sway about in the darkness, 
for they happened to stand out against the frame of the 
window. 

On the bed was a big coverlet of black-and-white check, 
well tucked in, and over the tidy line of white sheet at 
the top was the dark shape of a head, indefinite and 
misty in its tangled hair. 

This was Euphrosyne, wide awake. 

She was lying on her back, but her knees were drawn up 
so that she could grasp her small feet in her hands, or 
vigorously rub them. A man’s coat, thrown over the bed, 
added weight, without warmth, to the blankets and cover- 
let. Had she stretched to her full length there would still 
have been a great expanse of cold sheet beyond. She 
often crept into the bottom of the bed and lay there, 
curled up like a kitten — it was a favourite trick of hers — 
but on this particular night she decided, after thinking 
it over, that the task was too chilly to be accomplished. 

Her chin pressed the bedclothes snugly against her 
neck, and her eyes roved slowly from object to object in 
the dim light. She was not in the least afraid of being 
alone, for her fancy filled the room with quaint com- 
panions. She saw “ Florence ” sitting on the one chair, 
dressed in white, while “ Count-Countess ” knelt at her 
feet in shining armour. 

“ Florence ” and “ Count- Countess ” were the hero 
and heroine of an endless, romantic story which little 


NEW YEAR’S EVE 


5 


Euphrosyne told to herself, “ Florence ” being her 
favourite name, and “ Count-Countess " an invention of 
her own as none of the men’s names she knew sounded 
grand enough for a knight. The conversation between 
this imaginary couple, with which Euphrosyne was amus- 
ing herself at this minute, was always of a meandering, 
vague description, with many repetitions of “ No, fair 
lady,” and “Yes, brave knight.” 

From the chair she looked at the wash-stand, and re- 
cognised another favourite of fancy perched on the edge 
of the ewer, no other than “ Winkey,” a pet oyster, whom 
she saw in the shape of a big shell supported on tiny legs. 
“ Winkey ” began to talk, in the voice of the little girl, 
with “ Biddy,” an imaginary chicken. They resembled 
“Florence” and “Count-Countess” in the habit of 
unending, desultory conversation. “ Winkey,” her 
favourite, frequently indulged in a chuckle, while 
“ Biddy ” occasionally gave vent to a soft, but cheery, 
clucking. 

Then she looked at the green blind and pictured a 
hundred faces in its creases and lines. She could see dogs 
and cats and people, even little groups of houses and 
bunches of flowers. The softest curtains of silk or lawn 
would have failed to interest Euphrosyne as much as the 
old, green linen blind. 

She listened indifferently to the distant jingling of the 
piano till it ceased. Then she heard Miss Sapio’s voice, 
shrill and hilarious, bidding good-night to somebody 
whom she called “ Duckie,” followed by the banging of 
doors. 

Silence. 

Euphrosyne had rubbed her toes into a delicious tingle 
of warmth. Her eyelids drooped. “ Florence ” and 
“ Count-Countess ” grew indistinct. “ Biddy ” and 
“ Winkey,” obedient darlings of a daydream, left off 
chattering. She was slipping, slipping into sleep. 

Suddenly the door was pushed open, and she watched 


6 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


it with half-unconscious interest. A long, straight 
shadow fell on the opposite wall, and a figure, so tall that 
it had to stoop in entering, stepped to her side. It bent 
over her, stealthily, eagerly, holding its breath. 

Euphrosyne leapt up in her bed. 

“ My daddy! ” she cried, “ my daddy! ” 

The tall figure, stooping to enable her little arms to 
clasp his neck, looked almost as if he had snapped in half, 
bending from the waist at such a sharp angle. 

“ Tve been awake all the night,’’ said the child, with 
pardonable exaggeration. “ I’ve been waiting to have 
my supper with you. Take me up, daddy.” 

” Well — as it’s New Year’s Eve,” answered the tall 
man. 

He got her little winter jacket from the cupboard, 
while she pulled on her stockings and shoes, and, wrap- 
ping her also in the coat thrown across the bed, carried her 
into the sitting-room. She clutched him round the neck, 
and laughed, and bobbed up and down in his arms. 

He put her down in the one easy chair — an old, com- 
fortable, battered easy chair — turned up the gas, and, 
fetching some sticks and waste paper from a closet at the 
top of the stairs, quickly kindled a fire. 

The embers were still hot. Then he wiped his hands 
on the lining of his long overcoat, unwound the muffler 
about his neck and sat down, opposite to the child, to 
change his boots. 

Eddy Moore, the Human Eel, was a most peculiar- 
looking man; over six feet in height, well knit, but 
appallingly thin; colourless, with close-cropped, light 
brown hair; big, blue eyes, and small, delicate features. 
His face was cadaverous, and his bones — the sharp knees, 
the pointed elbows, the lean shoulders — looked as if they 
would cut through the cloth of his clothes, but there was 
at the same time a certain curving, indescribable grace in 
all his movements. 

His expression was intensely melancholy, except when 


NEW YEAR’S EVE 


7 


he looked for any length of time at the child, then his 
whole face changed and softened and he became young — 
in an ordinary way he might have been taken for any age 
from twenty-five to fifty — while his blue eyes, usually 
vacant and sad, filled with the pleasure and pride of deep, 
unselfish tenderness. 

Eddy Moore earned his living as a contortionist. He 
was engaged for the pantomime season at Drury Lane 
Theatre, but worked during the remainder of the year 
with a party of acrobatic comedians in the smaller music 
halls in London and the provinces. An exception from 
the general rule, he looked on his profession as a Human 
Eel with mingled satisfaction and distaste ; he was proud 
of his actual work, but the ordinary interests of the music- 
hall man did not appeal to him. Temperate, intelligent, 
dedicated from childhood to exacting, daily physical 
labour, there were many undeveloped qualities and possi- 
bilities in this grotesque, silent, unlettered man. 

His life had been opened and wonderfully illuminated, 
for three short years, by marriage with a woman who was 
his superior in every way, but who loved him with all the 
loyalty and strength of her nature. A stage-struck girl 
when first they met — well born, well educated, wilful, 
independent — Euphrosyne’s mother had cut herself 
adrift from all her friends, shipwrecked, drowned, in the 
opinion of her own social world, by marrying a man who 
was simply an acrobat, a buffoon, the chance acquaintance 
of a miserable engagement in a provincial pantomime. 

Had she repented of her hasty step, and the poor 
Human Eel proved himself the dark scoundrel her people 
foretold, there would probably have ensued a recon- 
ciliation with outraged uncles and aunts, but as it was, 
she lived and died without regret, and her people never 
forgave her husband for making her happy in his own way. 
He added to his iniquities, quite unconsciously, by ignor- 
ing his wife's family and showing no desire or intention of 
deserting his little daughter, whose uncommon name, 


8 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Euphrosyne, had been her mother’s before her. The 
spelling of the word, although mastered by Eddy when he 
was married, had caused him trouble in the brief days of 
his courtship. He confused its pronunciation with Auld 
Lang Syne — Eu-phro-syne — and spelt it with an amazing 
superfluity of letters. 

Sitting opposite to him now, the child’s small face 
sparkled and gleamed with pleasure. She watched his 
every movement, now and again bumping up and down 
in her seat with her hands on the arms of the chair, imable 
to keep still. He asked her questions as he pulled the 
table closer to the fire, and got another plate, spoon and 
fork from the cupboard. 

Did Mrs Simmons put you to bed, Those? ” 

No, daddy I ” with a vigorous shaking of her head. 

“ Why not? ” asked her father, with a look of mild 
surprise and disapproval. 

“ Didn’t come upstairs at all, daddy.” 

” Then who set the table for my supper? ” 

” I did.” 

” Did you turn down the gas yourself, dearie? ” 

” Yes, standing on a chair.” 

” Well, I hope you were very careful. Those, not to get 
yourself on fire,” said Eddy Moore. 

” I didn’t never get myself on fire, daddy.” 

The Human Eel shook his head gravely. All Mrs 
Simmons’s stories of little girls being burnt to cinders if 
they went near the gas had failed to frighten Thosie. 
Had her father ordered her not to climb on chairs to lower 
the lights he knew she would have obeyed him, but he 
never definitely told her to do, or not to do, anything. 
He warned her of possible dangers and trusted to her 
commonsense. This 3vas not weakness on his part, but 
an innate reliance on her character. 

Eddy emptied the pockets of his overcoat — sweets, 
oranges, nuts, a tin of sardines, and a box of glistening 
crystallized cherries. 


NEW YEAR’S EVE 


9 


Come along, Phosie, we’ll eat our last supper in the 
Old Year,” said the man, pushing her chair to the table. 
” I shall never have you sitting up so late as this again, 
you understand, never! ” 

Having asserted his parental authority — said the 
proper thing — Eddy Moore gave himself up to enjoyment. 
He devoured bread and cheese and sardines with the 
hunger of a man who has fasted long, but the child ate 
daintily, picking each cherry out of the box with delicate, 
deliberate fingers, and refusing both the pale plum pud- 
ding and the heavy mince pie, gifts from their landlady, 
Mrs Simmons. 

“You must come to see the Panto later on, Phose,” 
said her father, as he sipped his brandy-and-soda. 

“ I only want to see you, daddy,” she answered. “ But 
I wish you were a skeleton this year. I like skeletons 
better than eels. Skeletons’ ribs are so funny. I used 
to count ’em. Eels haven’t got any ribs.” 

“ Of course skeletons are more natural and nicer for 
children to see,” agreed Eddy. “ But it gives you fine 
opportunities when you’re an eel. It’s pretty work, mine 
is, but it’s hard, Phosie. It wears a man out. He can 
never do anything else.’ 

He pushed away his unemptied glass and turned to- 
wards the fire, locking his bony hands between his knees 
and staring into it. He often forgot the shortness and 
inexperience of the eight years of life which Euphrosyne 
had left behind, and talked to her as if she were a woman. 

“ When a boy is apprenticed, like I was, when he’s only 
nine years old, and then goes all through the hoop — 
learns everything you can learn in the business — some- 
times he gets to wondering whether it was worth while. 
He can never take a holiday, it would stiffen him up, for 
he’s got to keep himself loose whatever happens. He 
never does anything fresh, he can’t make much money, 
and what do people think of him? Nothing! Just 
nothing! ” 


lO 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


The little girl, slipping out of her chair, went on to his 
knee and nestled in his arms. She did not understand why 
he should suddenly look so sad, but she pressed her round 
cheek against his cadaverous face in silent sympathy. 

" It’s for your sake, Phosie, that I wish I belonged to 
some other business. I wish I was a parson, or a chemist, 
or a judge, or something respectable of that sort! ” con- 
tinued poor Eddy. “ I feel I can’t do the best for you. 
Now, if your mother had been spared — ! ” 

He gathered the child up in his arms and carried her 
across the room to where a portrait hung of his dead wife. 
It was an old-fashioned photograph, taken on the beach 
at a seaside place where they had spent their honeymoon. 
It showed a slight, girlish figure in a frock with tight 
sleeves and little flounces round the skirt. She held her 
hat in her hand, and her thick, wavy hair was blown back 
from her face ; it was a frank, laughing face, with straight 
features, a big mouth, and a very decided, square chin. 

As Eddy Moore looked at it a misty light stole into his 
mild blue eyes. He held the child a little closer, her face 
still pressed against his. 

“ She was very pretty and cheerful,” he said softly, 
half to himself. ” She was very fond of me.” 

He pondered a while in his slow way, then he looked at 
the child. 

” We wanted to have you, Phosie, but now — as it’s 
turned out — what are you smiling about, my darling? 
What have I said? ’’ 

” I was smiling before,” said Phosie, apologetically. 

” What about? ” asked her father, smiling too. 

” I don’t know. I just felt happy, daddy.” 

She held up her finger and turned her head towards the 
window, her soft tangle of pale brown hair sweeping across 
his face. 

” Listen! ” she said. ” I can hear the bells! Listen! 
Do you hear them? ” 

lie shook his head. 


NEW YEAR’S EVE ii 

“ Not yet, Phosie.” 

They did not move or speak for several seconds. 

“ I can hear them now! ” exclaimed Eddy. 

“ It’s the New Year! ” cried Phosie. “ It’s the New 
Year, and it’s my birthday! It’s my birthday, daddy! ” 

She was born on New Year’s Day. Her father, for the 
moment, had forgotten it. He carried her to the window, 
raised the blind, and they looked out. 

The rain had ceased and the sky was flooded with the 
light of the moon, breaking through hills of cloud, while 
the strong wind murmured in the distance, farther and 
farther away. The street was empty. The sound of 
bells clashed and pealed and echoed in the stillness of 
night. 

Eddy and the child listened in silence. He pressed the 
small fingers that twined round his hand against his lips. 

His thoughts were in the past. He stood alone looking 
out into such another night, listening — listening — to the 
strange sounds in his wife’s room near by, torn with fear 
and helplessness, unmanned, at his worst and his best in 
the agony of love and dread. He seemed to hear once 
more the weak, aimless, probing cry of the new-born 
child, and to feel the painful, struggling sob in his own 
throat. 

Euphrosyne looked at him wonderingly. His strange 
expression, as these vital minutes lived again in his 
memory, puzzled her. She recalled him to the present by 
slipping out of his arms and beginning to dance about the 
room, holding out the skirt of her coat to show the gay, 
striped pink nightdress underneath. 

“ Dance! Dance, daddy! ” she cried. 

Eddy Moore hummed a tune and emphasized the time 
by snapping his bony fingers as smartly as castanets. 
Phosie capered and kicked, dipped and whirled. They 
often danced together, not waltzes or polkas or other 
foolish checks to the inspiration of mirth, but wild, 
individual, original movements. 


12 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Her father, whose long legs looked like a pair of mad, 
animated compasses, danced with the peculiar boneless 
agility of the trained contortionist. Sometimes he stooped 
forward to the ground and ran for a dozen steps, his feet 
apparently chasing his hands ; then he would bend back- 
wards till his head rested in the small of his back; once or 
twice, by way of a change, he would “ hop the frog ” — as 
acrobats call it — which means that he would suddenly 
lie down on his chest and curve his body upward and for- 
ward until his toes were locked round his own neck, when 
he would proceed to jump about on his hands; now and 
again, at Phosie’s order, he would “ shoulder his leg,” in 
other words, lift his foot slowly in a straight line over his 
head. His face, the whole time, never lost its solemn 
expression. 

At the end of the dance, suddenly stooping over the 
little girl, he swung her from side to side of the room in 
leaps of frenzied delight. 

Her little feet hardly touched the ground; her hair flew 
out in a tangled mist; her lips were open with panting 
joy; her arms were outspread like the wings of a bird. 

She seemed to fly. 

Then, sinking down in the old chair by the fire, he 
soothed her to sleep with untiring patience. Slowly the 
quivering little form grew still, the bright eyes became 
dreamy, the hand loosened its clutch at his coat sleeve, 
and the laughing mouth curved into repose. 

He carried her into the attic, drew off the coat and the 
shoes and stockings, and tucked her into her bed. Then 
he stooped, kissed her hair, turned out the light, and 
softly crept out of the room. 

Thus, with laugh and dance and quiet sleep, the lonely 
man and his happy child opened a New Year. 


CHAPTER II 


A FLOWER IN A DITCH 

P HOSIE found life decidedly interesting in Airy 
Street. 

Mr Simmons, the landlord, was a composer — by cour- 
tesy — ^who earned his living in a peculiar way by scoring 
music, and occasionally providing original melodies, for 
the poorer class of music-hall performers. He was very 
well known to the musical conductors of London and 
suburban halls, who frequently had it in their power to 
put a little money in his pocket. Having played in 
theatre orchestras all his youth and composed a great 
number of waltzes, marches and comic songs, Mr Simmons 
was quite equal, as he said himself, “ to turning his hand 
to any branch of the business.” 

He was a big, silent man, with a round face, on which 
the features seemed to have been thrown by a careless 
hand. One of his eyes was immovable in his head, and 
his hair, shaved away from a thick neck and from behind 
his ears, was a dirty, sandy grey, his head being quite 
bald in patches. He was always in his shirt sleeves, 
without a collar, and he smoked incessantly. 

The keys of Mr Simmons’s piano were yellow with age 
and worn down with use. He played, as he smoked and 
breathed, without thought or effort, rattle, rattle, rattle 
all day long. His little front room was strewn with sheets 
of music, printed songs, old newspapers; the chairs had 
the appearance of having seen better days, being large 
and upholstered in plush, but shabby, discoloured, and 
weak on their legs. The mantelpiece was crowded 
with china ornaments, dusty bunches of lavender and 

13 


14 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


grass in blue vases, and faded photographs of music-hall 
artistes in startling costumes. 

On the walls hung framed copies of Mr Simmons’s own 
compositions, a few old play-bills, and a big portrait of a 
particularly repulsive boxer, inscribed “To John Sim- 
mons, Esq., from his old pal Yours truely ' Baby ’ Bull ” ; 
a second picture of the “ Baby ” hung over the piano — 
“ Baby Bull and Family,” the family consisting of a very 
stout lady, five children, and two bull dogs. On the floor 
was a threadbare carpet, with a grey sheepskin mat 
before the fireplace, and a strip of oil-cloth laid down, 
like a red carpet on state occasions, from the door to the 
piano. The windows were never opened and rarely 
cleaned. At night the gas flared without shades from a 
chandelier in the middle of the blackened ceiling. 

At Mr Simmons’s left hand stood a little table, bear- 
ing his desk and inkstand, where he jotted down his in- 
spirations and did his orchestration, rarely moving, ex- 
cept for meals, away from the jingle of the keys. 

Mrs Simmons was an untidy, shiftless, good-tempered 
lady, with a great quantity of black hair and a passion for 
entertainments. She spent three or four nights every 
week at one music-hall or another, the frequent change 
of programme preventing her from being bored. She 
always went to the cheapest seats, unless Mr Simmons 
could be induced to get her a free ticket, and returned 
home at half-past eleven, hot, tired, smoked dry with 
bad tobacco, but with her hunger for amusement still un- 
satisfied. Mrs Simmons would have got up in the middle 
of the night to go to a music-hall. 

Eddy Moore, when he first lodged in the house, paid 
her a small weekly sum to look after his little girl, but 
Mrs Simmons, whose own children had been shamefully 
neglected, though never ill-used, soon discovered that he 
was too particular. An easy way out of the hair-brushing 
problem, she argued, would be to crop off Phosie’s curls 
altogether, but Eddy Moore objected. He said he would 


A FLOWER IN A DITCH 


15 


brush it himself, and did so. Then Mrs Simmons con- 
sidered the child’s daily bath a wicked waste of warm 
water, not to mention the unhealthiness of the habit. 
Again Eddy Moore settled the matter by impressing on 
the child herself, young as she was, the strong necessity 
for soap and water. 

The first-floor lodger. Miss Sapio, was a tall, handsome 
young woman with tawny yellow hair, wonderful eyes of 
the same colour, and fine, straight features. She 
frankly called herself “ a show woman,” but she was 
more than that, being quite a clever actress, with a sense of 
humour and smouldering fire of dramatic passion hidden in 
the depths of an unawakened, self-indulgent nature. 

No one knew Miss Sapio’s real history, for she had a 
vivid imagination and a bad memory, so that the stories 
she told of her life were apt to become confused. She 
had been married, but sometimes her husband was re- 
presented as having died fighting for his country, at 
others he was casually mentioned as a successful tea- 
planter in Ceylon — expected home next summer — and 
all her other connections were equally vague. 

A certain brother J ack, who figured in her conversation 
at this period, appeared to belong to the Naval and 
Military services indiscriminately, except when he was 
farming in Manitoba, or attached to the British Embassy 
in Russia. 

Her sister Marguerite was sometimes the wife of a pro- 
fessor at Cambridge, sometimes of a country vicar, and 
sometimes the chatelaine of a grand old manor house in 
the north of England. 

Even the story of her pet dog, a tiny liver-and-white 
spaniel, was wrapped in mystery, for at first his mistress 
had bought him for a song in Drury Lane, then she had 
rescued him at great personal danger from the brutality 
of a gang of roughs in Hoxton, and then he was the gift 
of a broken-down man of genius whom Miss Sapio had 
befriended in his darkest hour. 


i6 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


She was an educated woman and could be charming, 
but long association with people who were mentally and 
socially her inferiors had coarsened her tastes and warped 
her finer instincts. Conscious of her beauty, conscious 
of her deterioration, there was nevertheless something 
magnificent — ^something that not only quickened the 
senses but moved the heart — in the vitality and wasted 
possibilities of this still young, still attractive woman. 
At times she could be terrible, when her tongue was un- 
bridled and her temper uncontrolled, but as a rule she 
was lazily good-humoured and always generous. 

Eddy Moore, when first Miss Sapio took possession of 
the first floor, had told his child not to speak to her or go 
into her rooms. Having worked in the same panto- 
mime as Miss Sapio in the provinces, he had heard her 
talk, and knew she could be violent and evil-tongued. 

One day Miss Sapio met Phosie on the stairs, Phosie 
being accompanied by her invisible pets, the chicken and 
the oyster, for whose benefit she was squeezing against 
the wall to give them room to walk beside her on the 
narrow staircase. 

‘ ‘ Hullo ! Who are you ? ’ ’ exclaimed Miss Sapio, kindly. 

Phosie told her name. 

‘'Oh, the kiddy on the top floor,” said Miss Sapio; 

‘ I thought you didn’t belong to old Simmons. Let’s 
have a look at you.” 

She put a big, shapely hand under the little chin and 
turned her face up. Phosie looked into the bold, tawny 
eyes with a child’s open curiosity. Her own face, 
strained upward, was serious for a second in its interest 
of expression, then the sweet mouth broke into the ready 
smile of good fellowship. Miss Sapio stooped down and 
kissed her. 

“ There, run along! ” she said, and watched her out of 
sight. 

Miss Sapio made an opportunity to speak to Eddy 
Moore. 


A FLOWER IN A DITCH 


7 


“ What a jolly youngster youVe got,” she said. “ She 
reminds me of my little sister Marguerite. I don’t mind 
her coming into my room to see the dog, you know. I’m 
fond of kiddies, when they’re clean.” 

Eddy thanked her a little nervously. He was rather 
afraid of Miss Sapio. She guessed it and laughed. 

“ It’s all right, old man,” she said, suddenly. “ I 
know what you’re thinking about, but you needn’t be 
frightened. I’ll be careful what I say before the child.” 

He stammered a few words in answer to her frankness. 

You can’t be too careful when they’re young,” he 
said, feebly. 

Miss Sapio agreed in strong language. Eddy looked at 
her a little reproachfully. 

“Oh, come, you’re no kid!” she exclaimed. “I 
shouldn’t have said it if she’d been here.” 

Eddy, in spite of his repugnance, told Phosie she 
might go into Miss Sapio’s room, for the simple reason 
that he had not the courage to forbid it. 

Mr and Mrs Dovey, whose whole existence was passed 
in straining and puUing to make both ends meet, were 
a most depressing couple. Mrs Dovey worked as a 
jacket hand at a big dress and mantle maker’s in Hol- 
born. Mr Dovey — ^fifteen years of whose life had been 
spent in earning the small capital which he lost in a 
musical instrument shop in fifteen months — ^played the 
cornet in a music-hall orchestra at night, and gave lessons, 
at one shilling per hour, in the daytime. 

It was among these people, in the shadow of these 
narrow and mean walls, that Phosie spent the years of her 
childhood 

Her father could weU have afforded a brighter and 
fairer home, but he was haunted by the dread of leaving 
his child penniless if he died ; the poor Human Eel had a 
bad habit of always expecting to die, and that was the 
reason that he hoarded his small salary. 

Her happiest hours were spent in his company. They 
2 


i8 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


went out together, and she told him stories of “ Florence 
and “ Count-Countess.” She spent a great deal of time 
reading to him a curious selection of borrowed books. 
Mr Simmons lent them Uncle Tom* s Cahin^ Swiss Family 
Robinson, the Pickwick Papers, and several old-fashioned 
very lengthy novels. When the pages were torn, or 
missing, Eddy would fill in the blank spaces with recol- 
lections from old melodramas seen in his boyhood. 

Mrs Simmons passed them on the Family Herald 
Supplements every week, which little Phosie tried to 
enjoy because the stories evidently impressed her father. 
Mrs Dovey’s contributions to the child’s literary educa- 
tion consisted of tracts, and bad tales of the kind known 
as “ goody-goody.” 

It was Miss Sapio, choosing her gifts in the light of the 
memory of nobler days, who gave Phosie a few of the 
many cherishable, imperishable books of fairy lore. 

Gentle Hans Andersen found his way to the little top 
rooms in Airy Street, with his tin soldiers and his talking 
flowers; the Brothers Grimm brought their witches and 
hobgoblins; Shahrazad fiUed the air with undying per- 
fumes of the East; the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and 
Alice were frequent visitors ; even the immortal heroes — 
Perseus, Jason, Heracles — ^were known to little Phosie 
in the simple words of an English story-teller, and she 
read of a certain gentle knight who was pricking o’er the 
plain long before she knew that his adventures were 
really written in verse. 

Her father could have told her no such tales. Indeed, 
he listened to them himself with all the simplicity of a 
child, taking legend and S5mibol in a literal sense. 

Phosie had the gift of gaiety; she devised games for 
herself, invented stories, cut out rag dolls, which she 
stuffed and painted in gaudy tints, and covered quires of 
cheap writing-paper with badly -drawn, but comic, 
pictures. 

She early assumed the household duties, supplementing 


A FLOWER IN A DITCH 


19 


Mrs Simmons’s haphazard cooking with daring ex- 
periments in cakes and puddings ; she kept the top floor 
as tidy and smutless as she possibly could, and it all 
afforded her intense amusement. 

Phosie was never the girl to shed tears over trifling 
troubles. As a mere child she instinctively differentiated 
between the things which matter, or do not matter, in 
daily life. If her household attempts were successful 
she was absurdly elated; while a slight mishap only 
spurred her to greater efforts, an utter failure brought out 
all her reserve force, but never prevented her from laugh- 
ing at herself. 

She was a great favourite with Mr Simmons, who looked 
upon his own children, three loutish boys, as his wife’s 
exclusive property for whom she was solely responsible. 

Phosie usually visited Mr Simmons in the late after- 
noon, sitting down beside the piano to talk if he hap- 
pened to be alone, or placing herself in one of the plush 
arm-chairs, on the opposite side of the room, if he hap- 
pened to be interviewing a patron. 

The gentlemen who sought his services were usually 
blue-chinned, very smartly or very shabbily dressed, 
talked slang, and smoked incessantly. If they were 
musical they whistled their ideas to Mr Simmons, who 
jotted down the notes on a small sheet of music paper. 

The lady visitors were generally very friendly, even 
affectionate in manner, with a fondness for fancy hand- 
bags, high heels and flowery hats. There was a great 
similarity in their complexions and the colour of their 
hair. Phosie often wondered why such pretty golden 
hair turned brown at the roots. 

Mr Simmons was alike indifferent to the gentlemen’s 
chaff or the ladies’ fascinations. He composed or scored 
their music with an air of complete detachment. Rely- 
ing on his undoubted cheapness he demanded payment in 
advance, with the understanding that his work should be 
altered a reasonable number of times to suit the purchaser. 


20 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Why do you make all your tunes so much alike, Mr 
Simmons? ” asked Phosie, innocently, after listening to a 
sentimental ballad, a comic song, and a composition to be 
played during the performance of trained dogs. 

Mr Simmons turned his squint in her direction and 
smiled, for the first time that day. 

“ Because I only charge ’em half-a-crown each, my 
dear,” he answered. 

“ Then you could make them different if you chose? ” 
she said. 

“ Of course I could! ” said Mr Simmons. ” I could 
write an opera if they was to pay me enough, or an 
oratorio. Why not?” 

If he meant to be sarcastic — ^his horrible eyes and 
heavy features never changed their expression, so that 
it was impossible to judge — it was lost upon Phosie. 

“ How clever you are, Mr Simmons! ” she exclaimed, 
with a genuine belief in any man’s possibilities which 
made some people call her, in after years, a bom flatterer. 

Miss Sapio became another of her warm friends. At 
the light tap of her foot on the stairs Miss Sapio’s door 
would open, and the tall, handsome woman, dishevelled 
about the head, and dressed in strange garments, would 
spring out and seize upon the child. 

Sometimes Phosie struggled away, laughing, and 
then Miss Sapio would call her a little wretch — a 
monkey — a puss — an imp — anything which came into 
her head, but never a coarse or cruel word. When she 
showed an inclination to accept hospitality. Miss Sapio 
bribed her to stop with chocolates, small toys, or penny 
bunches of flowers. She told her long stories of J ack and 
Marguerite, the never-seen brother and sister, and 
allowed her to play with a store of old finery. 

None of these things really influenced Phosie’s affec- 
tion. She liked Miss Sapio for herself, not for her gifts, 
but there was something about her which repelled the 
child. Of course she was unable, as children are, to give 


A FLOWER IN A DITCH 


21 


any reason for this feeling. It was subtle, unexplainable, 
but at times Miss Sapio offended her inner consciousness, 
as the smell of the stalks of dead flowers, or the sound 
of a vile word, offended her pecuHarly keen senses. 

Mr and Mrs Dovey frequently invited Phosie to tea on 
Sundays. They were rather afraid of the mild Human 
Eel, and secretly disapproved of his profession. With 
them she was seen at her best. Her chatter amused 
them, and her laughter drove the demon of depression 
out of their room. She made them think of the children 
of their dreams — the dreams of half-forgotten youth when 
they had loved each other. 

She listened to Mr Dovey’s gloomy views on the de- 
cadence of the cornet, and to Mrs Dovey’s recollections of 
brighter days, with as much interest as to Miss Sapio’s 
most thrilling story of her brother Jack’s adventures; 
entertaining them in her turn with snatches from the 
books she was reading and descriptions of her father’s 
achievements. She danced, and even acted little plays 
of her own invention. Sometimes Mr Dovey played the 
cornet, if he felt in sufficiently good spirits, and then 
Phosie sang “ Believe me if all those endearing young 
charms,” and “ The Minstrel Boy ” to his accompani- 
ment, firmly convinced that Moore’s Melodies were 
specially composed for that instrument, while Mrs Dovey 
forgot her never-finished labours of finishing jackets 
and listened to the incongruous music with placid 
pleasure. 

Mrs Simmons was the one person in the house who was 
indifferent to the child. Phosie’s youth and ignorance of 
music-hall matters probably accounted for this. At 
first she had been struck with her bright face and quantity 
of curly hair, but as time went on she was less and less 
inclined to share in the household’s affection for the little 
girl. Phosie, feeling antipathy in the air, tried to avoid 
her, became silent and watchful in her presence, and 
almost afraid of her loud laugh, and full, red face. 


22 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


So the days slipped past, and the long, long years of 
childhood were left behind. 

The self-told story of “ Florence ” and “ Count- 
Countess ” lost its interest. “ Biddy ” and Winkey ” 
ceased to be realities. She discovered that her father, 
once thought to be so old, like all the other grown-up 
people in the world, was almost young. She began to 
pay attention to her frocks, and to secretly exult in the 
shortness of her upper lip and the length of her eyelashes. 

Without any loss of high spirits, she was stirred with 
new emotions none the less beautiful because they are 
known to nearly every sensitive girl for a very brief, 
easily-forgotten period of her life. She feels as if she 
were awakening to the consciousness of separate exist- 
ence ; doubly bound to those she loves, for all her natural 
affections are strengthened at this time, she suddenly dis- 
covers the joy of solitude. Her thoughts are too evan- 
escent, too delicate, to be shared with the most intimate 
companion. For a little while there is no sentimentality, 
or even religious fervour, in her dream of awakening. 

She is simply content To Be, and her most serious 
thoughts flash with minutes of wild, unexplainable joy, 
when the heart seems to leap into the throat and the 
limbs are as light as air. 

Thus, like a flower at the edge of a ditch, Euphrosyne 
raised her little head — pure, delicate, stretching towards 
the sun — from out the dreariness and dirt of Airy Street, 
brightening all her poor surroundings with something of 
her own gaiety and innocence. 


CHAPTER III 


LITTLE GUS 


C HER! ’’ cried Little Gus, giving a loud, single 
knock at Mrs Simmons’s area door. 

It was a warm night at the end of May. He pushed 
back his cap and leaned against the wall, panting. 

Little Gus was a butcher boy, but not the typical 
butcher boy of song and story, who is invariably bull- 
necked, muscular, a terror to smaller boys — a butcher in 
the bud. 

Gus was small, pale, and the hand which steadied the 
oblong wooden tray on his shoulder was like a claw. He 
did not whistle, after the manner of his kind, or exchange 
defiances with passing youths to beguile the tedium of 
waiting. He was too tired for that, even if he had had 
the courage. 

It was ten o’clock, Saturday night. Little Gus’s 
master, two streets away, had been shouting “Buy! 
Buy! Buy! Loverly meat! Buy! Buy! Buy!” 
since five in the afternoon, but he was a strong man with 
the prospect of a good supper before him, while Little Gus, 
tea being a thing of the past, had nothing to look forward 
to but bed. 

“ ’Cher ! ” he yelled again, listlessly repeating the single 
knock. 

The door was opened by a girl. He knew her well, and 
his face brightened. He discreetly dropped his business 
voice in addressing her. 

“ ’Ullo ! 01’ woman out ? ” he asked, with a jerk of the 

head towards the passage. 

23 


24 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“Mrs Simmons? Yes. I’ll get a dish. Can’t you 
come in and rest for a few minutes, Gus? ” 

“Can’t — ’urry! ” answered the boy, who always 
omitted the small words that connect a sentence. 

The girl disappeared into the darkness of the passage 
and reappeared with a dish. She stooped forward to 
look at him, as he dabbed a small piece of meat on to it, 
with interest and curiosity. 

The light from the lamp in the street fell on her face. 
It was Phosie Moore, but not the Phosie of the old days. 

She was dressed in black, a worn-out dress of mourn- 
ing; her hair was twisted into a tight plait; she wore a 
pair of old, rusty, beaded slippers, found among dis- 
carded rubbish after Miss Sapio left Airy Street; her 
hands were roughened with hard work, and her face had 
lost its rounded curves. 

She looked what she was — a little drudge, underfed 
and growing too fast, like a fair weed in poor soil. But 
as she looked at the boy her eyes grew bright and impish. 
He read her thoughts. 

“ Can’t — afraid,’’ he said. “ They’d catch us — sure — 
you go — by yerself.” 

“No! You’re worse off than I am,” she replied. 
“ Why haven’t you more pluck? ” 

“ Dunno! ” said Gus, sadly. 

Phosie did not look contemptuous. She was too sorry for 
the boy. Her feeling was one of impatient helplessness. 

It was two years since her father died. Never- to-be 
forgotten night ! It still haunted her mind — the sudden 
awakening from sleep; the strangers in the room; the 
dragging on of clothes; the drive through the flaring 
streets; the great building to which they took her; 
kind, curious faces turning to look as she was hurried 
along white-washed passages; a long, quiet room, with 
rows of beds; and then — her father’s face, with closed 
eyes, as white as the pillow, and her father’s hand 
stretched out, palm upwards, as white as the sheet. 


LITTLE GUS 


25 


He had met with an accident on the stage — she remem- 
bered grasping that fact in the midst of her dazed horror — 
and his right side was paralysed. The nurse bent over 
him and spoke. Phosie could only stare at the strange 
white face, like the mask of the face she knew. She 
thought he was asleep. 

The nurse spoke again. Phosie, glancing up, with 
sudden intuition understood the expression of the doctor, 
who stood immovable on the opposite side of the bed. 
She realised that her father was drifting into eternal sleep. 

“ My daddy! My daddy! ” she cried in a shrill voice. 

At the sound of her cry his eyelids quivered, lay still, 
quivered again, and lifted on her face. He looked at her 
— one long, quiet, conscious glance — and died. 

Phosie had returned to Airy Street, to be consoled with 
passionate tenderness by Miss Sapio, and with more con- 
siderate kindness by Mr and Mrs Dovey. 

Poor Eddy Moore, in his dread of leaving his child 
penniless, had been tempted, only a few months before 
his death, to invest the greater part of his savings in an 
apparently safe theatrical speculation, dazzled by the 
prospect of big returns. Unfortunately the speculation, 
like so many of its kind, ended in disappointment and 
disaster. 

Mr Simmons, self-appointed guardian, found that 
Phosie’s inheritance amounted to an elaborate contract 
with Eddy’s ruined partners, and a hundred pounds in the 
Post Office Savings Bank. He decided, quite sensibly, 
that she must be taught to earn her own living, paying a 
small weekly sum for her board and lodging in Airy Street 
until she was old enough to take care of herself. 

For several months she continued to occupy her little 
room at the top of the house and life was very much the 
same as it had been in Eddy Moore’s time, except for 
the loneliness in her heart. Outwardly she soon recovered 
from her loss, laughed and chattered as much as ever, 
and never spoke of her father. 


26 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Then Miss Sapio obtained an engagement to go to 
America, and went away from Airy Street, leaving Phosie 
with tears and embraces, and clasping her great treasure, 
an old paste necklace, round her neck as a parting gift. 

This was the first of a rapid succession of changes. Mr 
and Mrs Dovey were obliged to move into cheaper 
lodgings, and they too passed out of Phosie’s life. 

Mr Simmons, after twenty years of indifference to the 
charms of the many ladies whom he met professionally, 
eloped with a flaxen-haired, plain little woman, whose 
only attraction appeared to be her unlikeness to his 
wife. 

With characteristic coolness he advised his friends of 
his change of address before taking the irrevocable step, 
having had his piano removed during his wife’s absence 
from home, and carried on his business in his old way at 
his new home, where his new partner — Mrs Simmons by 
courtesy — managed their lodgers, their patrons, and Mr 
Simmons with strict impartiality. 

The original Mrs Simmons, backed by the Law, com- 
pelled him to contribute towards her support and con- 
tinued to occupy the house in Airy Street. Her sorrow — 
if it could be considered a sorrow to be rid of Mr Simmons 
— did not improve her character. Always intemperate 
in her love of amusement, she became intemperate in 
other ways, and developed a latent meanness. 

Phosie had to give up her own dear little attic and 
sleep in a dark slip of a room at the top of the kitchen 
stairs. Having left school, for she was past fourteen, 
Mrs Simmons began to make her useful in the house. 
The hundred pounds was dwindling away, some of it 
having vanished with Mr Simmons, and Phosie found her- 
self in the position of an unpaid servant. 

Her sole duty in life was to save Mrs Simmons’s steps, 
so she answered the door, waited on the lodgers, and ran 
the errands. There was no time to read, even if she had 
had any books, for her mistress was a born nigger -driver. 


LITTLE GUS 


27 

violent in wrath, as many lazily good-tempered people 
become, and thoroughly selfish. 

Phosie’s life was intolerable. A less buoyant nature 
would have been conquered by daily physical exhaustion, 
but the girl — child of her mother’s independence of spirit 
and her father’s persistence of effort — gained in strength 
of purpose as she gained in years. There was nothing of 
the willing martyr in her composition. If she adapted 
herself to her circumstances, prompt and obedient to her 
mistress and properly humble to the lodgers, she was 
nevertheless continually plotting freedom. 

It was the weakness of little Gus, a fellow victim, that 
had kept her in slavery so long. 

“ Let us run away! ” said Phosie, for the hundredth 
time during the past three months, on that warm May 
night when Mrs Simmons was not at home and she talked 
to her friend in the area. 

“ Where to? ” asked Gus, his invariable question. 

“ Out of Airy Street, into the world,” said Phosie. 
‘‘ I can’t breathe here. I am tired of it — sick of it 
all.” 

“ WeVe got to live,” urged Gus. “ We can’t starve — 
’ungry, you know — awful 1 ” 

Phosie laid her hands on the boy’s shoulders. He felt 
how strongly they gripped through his thin jacket. 

“ Won’t you trust me, Gus? ” she said. “ I’ll take 
care of you. You’re all alone in the world, and so am I. 
We can work — I’m not afraid.” 

“ You ain’t very old,” he argued. “ I dunno what you 
could do — nor me neither.” 

“ Oh, you’d get a job at once! ” said Phosie, with the 
certainty of ignorance. “ All you want is courage and 
determination. I’m not so very young. There are lots 
of people younger than I am. Lots of them are only 
babies. Think of that, Gus! I can do plain cooking, 
and I can dance.” 

Even Little Gus smiled at this. 


28 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Dance ! ” he repeated scornfully. “ Who’ll pay yer ? 
Dance! I could dance myself.” 

“ Ah, but not like this I said Phosie. 

She suddenly stood on the very tips of her toes, spread 
out her arms and pattered round the area, straight as a 
dart from ankle to head. Then she gave a couple of high 
kicks, first with one foot then with the other, and if the 
people who disapprove of high kicking could have seen 
her they would have been obliged to confess that there 
was something very neat and dainty in the way the old 
beaded slipper flew into the air, twinkled on a level with 
Gus’s head, and was back to earth before his start was 
over. She burst out laughing and dropped on the soles 
of her feet. Gus, after a vain attempt to balance on his 
toes in imitation, shook his head and shouldered his 
wooden tray. 

“ Who learned you? ” he asked. 

I taught myself — it’s nothing,” said Phosie. But 
it shows how well I could dance if I tried. I could go on 
the stage. I’ve saved a pound, and I’ve got that old 
necklace Miss Sapio gave me, and some rings which be- 
longed to my mother, and my father’s watch and chain 
and scarf-pin — ^no, I couldn’t sell those, but aU the others 
might go. The money would keep us both for months, 
Gus, till we got a job.” 

” I dunno! ” said the boy for the second time. 

These words expressed his whole attitude towards life. 
In after years he learned to say the same thing in different 
ways — ” I really can’t say,” or “ I haven’t any idea,” or 
” I would rather not give an opinion ” — but the fact re- 
mained unaltered. Perhaps the modesty of his con- 
fession will not be overlooked in judging the character 
of Little Gus. Wiser men have come to the 
same conclusion — “ Much as we know, what do we 
know? ” 

” You don’t mind leaving your master and mistress, do 
you? ” continued Phosie. 


LITTLE GUS 


29 

‘*Ne-ow! ” said Gus, with supreme disgust at such an 
idea. 

You haven’t got any relations, have you? ” she asked. 

The boy shook his head, and his worn, unchildish face 
suddenly twitched. 

Dunno know who i am — ^bom work’us — ^no father — 
mother dead — no ’ome — no money — ^no friends! ” 

Those words determined her. His constant fear of 
facing a world, which she believed only waited to be won, 
had almost broken the ties of mutual loneliness which 
bound them together. But when he said he had no 
friends and no home, and she realised it was the truth, her 
young heart opened and took him in. 

Little Gus — ^neglected, stunted, ill-bom son of misery — 
from that hour was Phosie’s brother. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE ADVENTURERS 

I T was three days after their talk in the area, when 
Phosie had demonstrated her ability to dance for a 
living, that Little Gus agreed to run away. 

An unmerited thrashing from his master, whose temper 
was spoilt by long experience of errand-boys, settled the 
question. Gus had not neglected his work, but he was 
naturally stupid, and his master was unable to dis- 
criminate. 

He went to Phosie, sore and indignant, threw himself 
unconditionally into her hands, and received his marching 
orders. 

They were to leave Airy Street on the following morn- 
ing, meeting by agreement outside a certain sweet shop 
some distance away, and set out at once to conquer 
London. 

Although Phosie no longer lived in the quaint world of 
her childhood, surrounded by imaginary pets and firmly 
believing in the existence of fairies — fairies who were as 
real to her as “ the country ” where they lived and which 
she had never seen — it only meant she had shifted her 
ground. She saw the streets and houses, not indeed 
under the spell of enchantment, but all in a haze of ad- 
venture and romance. 

She and Little Gus were about to enter on a life of ex- 
citement and delight. They would forget Airy Street, 
work for their living, buy books, wander in the parks, win 
the love of innumerable friends, and make their fortunes. 
Beyond making their fortunes she did not speculate. 
There is nothing like being strictly practical. 

30 


THE ADVENTURERS 


31 


Fortune favoured her on the day of liberation. 

Mrs Simmons, who had been out to supper on the 
previous evening, did not get up to breakfast, leaving the 
lodgers to Phosie’s care. 

Having cooked the first-floor’s bacon, made the second- 
floor’s tea, and told the third-floor it was nearly eight 
o’clock, according to instructions, she packed her store of 
clothes into a bundle — ^poor Eddy Moore’s heart would 
have ached to see that little bundle ! — ate a piece of bread 
and butter, cleaned her shoes, and finally tapped at Mrs 
Simmons’s door. Mrs Simmons grunted from within. 

“ Shall I get you your breakfast, Mrs Simmons? ” said 
Phosie through the door. 

Come in, can’t you? ” said her mistress. 

Phosie obeyed. The closeness of the air, the remains 
of a supper on a table, the look of the woman on the 
tumbled bed, gave her a minute of nausea. She recovered 
herself quickly and stood at the door, waiting for orders. 

“ Pull up the blind a bit, Phose, and take away that 
stale food. I don’t think I can eat anything. My head’s 
something awful this morning,” said Mrs Simmons, 
yawning horribly. 

The girl, with an effort mastering her repugnance to 
enter, raised the blind over the closely-bolted window and 
packed the tray, while Mrs Simmons pulled herself into a 
dirty flannel dressing- jacket and rubbed her face all over, 
regardless of features, like a baby. 

“Shall I open the window a little, Mrs Simmons?” 
said Phosie, boldly. “ It’s very stuffy.” 

“ Mind your own business! ” said Mrs Simmons. “ I 
don’t want to be blown out of bed with the draught. 
You make me a strong cup o’ tea and a round of buttered 
toast, and bring up the knuckle of ham. Look sharp ! ” 

When Phosie returned she guessed, by the smeU of 
brandy in the room, that her mistress had been indulging 
in the first drink of the day. She made the room as tidy 
as she could, and set the neat tray on a chair by the bed. 


32 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Mrs Simmons did not thank her, but she began to eat her 
breakfast with great energy for such a sufferer. 

Oh, my poor head! ” she muttered at intervals, drag- 
ging shreds of meat off the knuckle with evident relish. 
“ Oh, my poor, dear head! ” 

The girl smiled and looked at her from the door, with 
her mat of coarse black hair and flannel dressing- jacket 
open at the big throat, and that was the last she ever saw 
of Mrs Simmons. 

Phosie filled the kettle and put it on the stove, ready 
for Mrs Simmons to wash up the breakfast things ; filled 
the scuttle with coals; gave the cat a saucer of milk; 
made her own slip of a room tidy, and then put on her hat 
and little cape. 

She wrote a few words of good-bye on a piece of paper 
and left it on the kitchen table. She had told Little Gus 
to do the same. Before leaving the house she ran up- 
stairs and stealthily laid her face for a second against the 
door of the room where her father had slept. A pang of 
loneliness shot through her. She felt as if she were 
leaving him behind. 

“ Good-bye, my daddy! ” she whispered to the closed 
door, patted it with her hand, and slipped noiselessly 
away. 

It was a hot, sunny morning. Phosie closed the area 
door as quietly as she could, and hurried up the steps into 
the street. 

A man was passing the house carrying a basket filled 
with roses, violets and other flowers. A whiff of delicate 
perfume swept over her face, forever after to be associated 
in her mind with the hour of freedom. 

Phosie’s eyes rested with delight on the confusion of 
soft but vivid colours, and her feet fairly danced along 
the pavement of Airy Street. 

Two women, who were disputing in high-pitched voices 
at the corner, stopped as she passed and looked after her. 
She had given an absurd little caper, unable to check her- 


THE ADVENTURERS 


33 

self, and they both happened to see it. A laugh ended 
their quarrel. 

A pretty child greeted her from the steps of a neigh- 
bour’s house, and she stopped a second to exchange a 
kiss. 

A young woman, plodding along with a barrow of 
vegetables, nodded good morning, although she had never 
seen Phosie before, and told her baby, enthroned on an old 
sack on top of the lettuces, to wave his hand. 

She had never found the sky so blue or the sunshine so 
brilliant. It would not have surprised her if the stones 
had turned into gold. The rumble of more busy roads in 
the distance summoned her like martial music. The 
spirit of Adventure fired her blood. 

Little Gus was waiting at the appointed spot. She 
burst out laughing when she saw him. He was leaning 
against a wall, his cap at the back of his head, and all his 
worldly possessions tied up in a bit of old blue apron. He 
looked a picture of human misery. 

“Is there anything the matter, Gus?” said Phosie, 
trying to be sympathetic. 

He sniffed loudly, it was a habit of his, and looked at his 
fellow-adventurer with rueful eyes. 

“ What’s to ’appen next? ” he asked. 

Phosie confided her plans. 

“ We are going to find Mr and Mrs Dovey,” she said. 
“ They are old friends of mine. They used to live in our 
house, and when they went away Mrs Dovey gave me her 
address. She will tell us where to sleep, and perhaps we 
can live with them till we get some work to do.” 

“All right, but look ’ere! You won’t catch me not 
goin’ to another butcher — ^never! ” said Little Gus. 

“No, you must get something better than that,’* 
agreed Phosie. 

They had started to walk down the street as they 
talked, but now Phosie stopped and laughed again. 

“ We’re going back to Airy Street! ” she exclaimed. 

3 


34 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ That’ll never do. Stop a minute while I look again 
where Mrs Dovey lives.” 

She took a carefully-folded letter out of her pocket, and 
held it for her companion to read at the same time. 

“You see she lives in Hammersmith,” said Phosie. 
“ Now, I wonder where that is.” 

Little Gus suggested it might be near the Borough or 
Smithfield Meat Market, the only parts of London he 
seemed to have heard about. 

They consulted a policeman, and Phosie listened care- 
fully to his advice regarding trains or omnibuses. Gus 
stared helplessly up and down Edgware Road, too de- 
pressed to pay attention. 

“ We can walk a little now I know the way,” said 
Phosie, and started off again at a brisk pace. 

The policeman glanced after them. He was a serious, 
youthful Scotchman, so he knew a pretty girl when he 
saw one. 

The open sweep of roads at Marble Arch, with the 
beautiful waving branches of the park beyond, captivated 
Phosie. She stood at the edge of the curb, absorbed in 
the continual threat of entanglement in the traffic, the 
never-ending movement in the scene. 

Gus was much more interested in a deformed beggar, 
watching the unfortunate man’s method of wriggling 
along on his hands and knees with morbid curiosity. He 
clutched Phosie’s sleeve nervously as they crossed the 
busy road, but once within Hyde Park, westward bound, 
even Little Gus was moved to pleasure. 

They walked on the grass, shaded by the leafy boughs, 
their unaccustomed eyes roving over the seemingly end- 
less greensward, the vivid flower-beds and even paths. 

They rested for half an hour within sight of the foun- 
tains in Kensington Gardens, and eagerly devoured a 
couple of buns which Phosie had bought in Edgware 
Road. Already it seemed a long, long time since they 
left Airy Street. 


THE ADVENTURERS 


35 


Mid-day found them at Hammersmith, slightly dis- 
couraged by having wandered out of their way in passing 
through Bayswater. Little Gus complained of fatigue. 
Phosie was obliged to spend another penny in refresh- 
ments. 

It was a difficult matter to find the mean street from 
which Mrs Dovey had written. The boy began to lag be- 
hind, and even Phosie, undaunted as she was, felt ill at 
ease and a little nervous in the bustle and noise of un- 
known roads. 

They strayed into a busy market, lined with fruit and 
vegetable stalls, where Little Gus pleaded for bananas, 
stared open-mouthed at a man doing a good trade with 
the latest penny novelties, and found horrible fascination 
in watching a boy skinning rabbits. 

They were jostled into a crowded thoroughfare, where 
women with perambulators serenely wheeled their infants 
along the narrow pavement, all trying to be near the shop 
windows, regardless of the rules of the road. 

It was with a sense of gratitude and relief, intensified 
by the knowledge that her old friends were at hand, that 
Phosie read the longed-for name on a gas-lamp at the 
corner of a little street of poor houses, with crowds of 
children of aU ages playing about the pavement. 

Quickly finding the number she wanted Phosie picked 
her way between two little boys who were engaged in 
sharing a large round sweet, of the kind vendored as 
“ The Old Original English Bullseye,'’ rolling it from 
one to the other along the ground between their 
sucks. 

She knocked boldly at the open door. Gus remained 
in the street below, in charge of the bundles. After a 
lengthy pause a young woman appeared out of the dark- 
ness of the passage, and civilly asked her business. 

“ I want to see Mr and Mrs Dovey, if you please,” said 
Phosie, her voice shaking with excitement. 

” Dovey? ” repeated the woman, vaguely. ” I don’t 


36 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

know that name. You don’t mean Saunders, or Levy, I 
suppose? ” 

“ Oh, no ! ” said Phosie, quickly. “ I mean Mrs Dovey. 
She’s an old lady and her husband plays the cornet.” 

“ They’ve gone ! ” broke in a shrill voice from the dis- 
tance, belonging to a second woman, whose figure could be 
dimly discerned hanging over the banisters. “ I know 
the people she means, Mrs Saunders. They’ve gone. 
They went a couple of months ago, before you moved in.” 

” They’ve gone,” said the woman at the door, echoing 
the hopeless words in Phosie’s ears. 

” Do you know where they have gone? ” she asked a 
little faintly. 

“ No ! ” said the shrill voice, with decision. “No idea, 
nor nobody else in the house. What did you want them 
for? ” 

“ They were friends of mine, but it doesn’t matter. 
Thank you ! ” said the girl, shrinking away from the sharp 
curiosity of the two women. 

She walked briskly down the street, her head high, and 
Little Gus pattered along beside her. 

“ Well? Ain’t we goin’ in? What’s up? ” he asked 
breathlessly. 

“ Mr and Mrs Dovey are not there,” she answered 
slowly. “ We must do without them, Gus.” 

“ Oh, Gawd! ” groaned the boy. 

Phosie seized upon his hand. 

“ It’s all right, dear! Don’t you be frightened,” she 
said. 

He sniffed more loudly than usual for a few minutes, 
clinging to her hand. 

“ I s’pose — we’re goin’ back again then? ” he said. 

“Oh, Gus!” exclaimed Phosie. “Back to Airy 
Street? Back to the old grind? Back to dirt and dark- 
ness? No! No!” 


CHAPTER V 


UNDER THE LILAC BUSH 


HERE was a long, wide road in Hammersmith, very 



i quiet and countrified in the days of Euphrosyne’s 
girlhood, lying close to the river. 

The houses were remarkable for an interesting variety, 
as if the builder, or probably many different builders, had 
been unable to decide whether rich or poor people should 
inhabit them. 

They were all old-fashioned, but not sufficiently old to 
be attractive on that account. Some of them were semi- 
detached with fairly large balconies, and imposing, heavy 
porticoes ; some of them were as small as cottages with a 
square of garden in front, and some were tall, thin houses 
with long flights of steps leading to the front doors. 

Plane trees were planted in lines on either side of the 
road, and it was lighted by an insufficient number of gas 
lamps. A small row of shops, squeezed in among private 
houses near one end of the road, added to the convenience 
of the residents, if it somewhat offended their taste. They 
grumbled at the shops, but found them very useful. 

There was the same variety in the gardens as in the 
houses. The spring was the time to see The Stroll, as this 
old road was called, at its best, for there was an excep- 
tionally large number of flowering trees; laburnum 
rained its pale golden spray over the passers-by, haw- 
thorn flung its honeyed scent into the air, and lilac bushes 
lifted their tiny towers of purple and white blossoms. 

Towards the end of May the first freshness of the year 
was passed, for even The Stroll was not free from the 


37 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


38 

drought and dust of London streets in summer, but the 
plane trees were still at their best and the bushes in the 
gardens thick with foliage. 

It was ten o’clock at night. The heat of the day had 
given place to a cool, quiet evening. One bright star 
trembled in the depths of a cloudless blue sky. 

Phosie and her companion, dragging their way over 
Hammersmith Bridge, looked down the long curve of the 
river towards the dim, misty shores of the distant country. 

It was high tide; the towing path was flecked with 
lights; factory chimneys and clustering roofs looked 
black and mysterious against the sky. To Phosie they 
were the unknown castles of her imagination. She forgot 
she was homeless in the pleasure of her day dream. 

Following the course of the river as it wound into 
silence, she thought of green fields and sheltering trees, 
where all the flaring lights of the city would burn in the 
distance as feebly as the yellow lamp at the prow of a 
creeping barge. Then she seemed to hear the murmur 
and sobbing of the waves, the music of the wonderful 
sea she had never looked on. London was gone, and 
her gay little spirit danced on the open sands. 

The feeble clutch of her companion’s hand recalled her 
to reality. Little Gus no longer complained of their 
dreary flight. He was resigned to his fate, like a faithful 
dog limping at the heel of a master who had lost his way. 

They had made several attempts to get into lodgings, 
but their extreme youth and evident poverty had only 
aroused curiosity and suspicion. Even when Phosie 
showed her money as a guarantee of good faith and 
honesty, she was confused and rebuffed by volleys of 
questions or sudden familiarity. 

Several of the people at the poor houses where she had 
asked for accommodation had filled her with vague, in- 
stinctive dread. A man had followed them once during 
the afternoon and tried to make her speak to him, and the 
incident had shaken her nerve. 


UNDER THE LILAC BUSH 39 

Gus was hopeless. He could only suggest “ the 
work’us,” and when Phosie refused to listen he began to 
talk about drowning himself. 

Refreshed by some tea and bread and butter, which 
they bought at a stuffy little shop in a side street near the 
bridge, Phosie no longer ignored the truth. 

We shan’t get a lodging to-night,” she said, in a 
decided voice. “ We must make up our minds to sleep 
out of doors.” 

” I dunno where,” said Little Gus, staring miserably 
down the street. 

“ To-morrow morning I must look for work — I can 
clean steps anyway,” she continued, desperately. ” To- 
night we must hide ourselves. I don’t care ! My father 
often slept out of doors when he was a boy, tramping over 
the country with a little circus . N ow, where shall we go ? 
Where shall we go? ” 

Lines of anxiety and thought furrowed her childish 
brows for a few minutes, and then they cleared away and 
she smiled again. 

” Do you remember that long road with trees on each 
side, Gus, where you took off your boot to see if your heel 
was blistered? ” she asked. 

He nodded his head. 

“ Let us go there! ” said Phosie. “ We can creep into 
one of those gardens under the bushes.” 

” Cops ! ” said Little Gus, unequal to more than the one 
alarming word. 

“ We must risk it! ” she replied. 

They made their way slowly to The Stroll. Little Gus, 
with aching limbs, would have taken up his quarters in 
the first shady garden they found, but Phosie was too 
prudent. She pulled him, feebly protesting, half down 
the road before discovering a promising shelter. 

The windows of the house she picked upon were all 
dark, except for a faint gleam through the blind of a 
room^which was partially underground. 


40 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


The front garden was exceptionally broad and neg- 
lected. There was a holly tree beside the gate, and a 
straggling privet hedge divided it from the garden next 
door. The centre bed was a tangle of flowers and leaves 
which they could not distinguish in the darkness, and two 
large bushes, lilac and syringa, formed a dense screen 
against the right side of the house. 

There was no one in sight. With the quickness of fear 
and excitement Phosie slipped through the open gate, 
still holding Gus, closed it behind her, and crept into the 
blackness of the bushes. 

She laid her hand on the wall, stooped low, and gently 
forced her way under the mass of laden boughs. Gus 
followed, breathing hard, and making tiny whimpering 
sounds as the twigs flicked into his face. 

“ Hush! ” whispered Phosie. Be quiet! ” 

The ground felt damp. They could see nothing. She 
put her arm round him and they crouched down, protect- 
ing their eyes with their hands. 

They remained in the same cramped position for several 
minutes, without speaking, afraid to stir. Then Phosie, 
finding they were safe so far, spread out the skirt of her 
dress as well as she could, sat on the ground, and drew 
Little Gus down beside her. A bright thought flashed 
across her desolation. 

“ It’s like the Babes in the Wood! ” she whispered. 

An unexpected fear made the boy tremble more than 
ever. 

“Think there’s snakes? ” he asked, touching the soft, 
cold earth. 

“ No, of course not! ” she said. 

“ There is — always — in the country,’’ he declared. 

Phosie’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. She 
could make out the shapes of surrounding boughs, see the 
lines of the houses, and catch glimpses of sky over her 
head. 

She pressed backward firmly into the centre of the bush, 


UNDER THE LILAC BUSH 41 

drew her knees up to her chin, and again passed her right 
arm round Little Gus, drawing him close to her side. 

The humid air smelt of earth; stray leaves tickled their 
necks, like the touch of swift fingers ; they were pricked 
now and again by broken twigs; their breath was warm 
on each other’s faces. 

The street was very silent. Once a cab passed, the 
trip-clip-clop of the horse’s hoofs ringing out clearly on 
the even road. A party of friends, returning from the 
local theatre, sounded terribly close with their laughter 
and talk to the unseen listeners. The gloomy singing of 
a half-drunken man, occeisionally breaking out into loud, 
discordant notes, made them sick with fright. A police- 
man went by so quietly that they were as unconscious of 
him as he of them. 

The slow hours dragged and the searching wind of 
night found them out ; the bushes quivered as it breathed 
in the leaves, and the boy and girl shuddered as they felt 
it lifting their hair and stealing over their flesh. 

Cold! ” whispered Little Gus. 

Phosie, who was keenly alive to every sensation, under- 
stood his wretchedness, his complete surrender to physi- 
cal discomfort, and pressed her cheek against his with 
something of the protecting, pitying tenderness a mother 
feels for her child. 

Try to go to sleep, dear! ” she murmured. “ I’ll 
take care of you.” 

He whimpered a little more of the darkness and the 
cold, then his eyes closed and he nestled against her more 
closely, with his head upon her shoulder. 

She was grateful he was asleep. Poor Little Gus ! All 
the impatience with his helplessness she had suppressed 
during the day faded out of her mind. She thought of 
him, out of the depth of her fifteen years, as a child. She 
took upon herself the whole responsibility of what they 
had done, but it rested very lightly on her shoulders. 

The irrepressible gaiety of her nature asserted itself 


42 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


once more. The terrors of the first hours of concealment 
disappeared. 

There was not a sound to be heard. She could plainly 
see the blue sky and the one bright star through the 
branches. The remembrance of the close rooms at Airy 
Street brought no regret. 

Too young, too ignorant to realise the hardships and 
discouragements of life, Phosie was quite old enough to 
appreciate freedom. She had known what it was to be 
the victim of petty t5n:anny, and she saw in her com- 
panion the effects of suppression, overwork, and utter 
dependence on the will of others. 

A feeling of strength, born of a day of courageous 
action, swept over her. It was her misfortune, not her 
fault, that her friends had disappeared. She recognised 
this, and refused to acknowledge failure. 

Little Gus leaned against her heavily. One of her arms 
grew stiff and painful. She pulled it away, without wak- 
ing him, and rubbed the cramped muscles into action. 
Then she treated her feet with the same vigour, slipping 
off her shoes for a few minutes to do it, till her fingers 
tingled and she felt aglow, even to the tips of her ears. 

The wind was gone. Every leaf was still. Phosie’s 
eyelids drooped. She gave a little sigh of forgetful ease 
and fell asleep. 


CHAPTER VI 


EUPHROSYNE AND MR REVELL 

W HEN Phosie opened her eyes, slowly and dreamily, 
the sun was slanting through the holly tree, the 
blackness of the garden had turned to green, and a warm 
breeze fanned her cheeks. 

She stretched her stiffened limbs and shifted her 
shoulder from the weight of Little Gus. The boy awoke 
at the same time, rubbed his eyes, yawned, squirmed 
about in his clothes, and looked up at Phosie. 

“ ’Ullo! Slep’ well? ” he asked, as if it were the most 
ordinary thing in life to pass the night sitting on the 
ground under a lilac bush. 

It was nearly seven o’clock. The street was noisy with 
milk carts, while an energetic boy, delivering newspapers, 
was banging every gate he passed through as an accom- 
paniment to the whistle of a popular tune with which he 
beguiled his morning labours. 

“ Oh, I’m glad it’s day! ” exclaimed the girl, fervently. 
She cautiously rose to her feet, stooped forward and 
peered through the bush. The next instant she jumped 
back again, treading on Little Gus’s toes, as the stillness 
of the garden was broken by the violent, excited yelping 
of a small Welsh terrier. 

He had caught a glimpse of her, and, after the manner 
of puppies, proclaimed his discovery to all within hearing, 
Scuttling through the grass, he made a rush at the bush, 
barking with all his might. Phosie laughed, in spite of 
her alarm, and Little Gus gave vent to one of his late 
master’s favourite oaths. 


43 


44 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ What’s the matter with the dog? Taffy! Taffy! 
Come ’ere! ” exclaimed a woman, whose opening of the 
front door had enabled the puppy to escape from the 
house. 

She was a little woman, neatly dressed in a black gown, 
with a duster tied over her head and a door mat in her 
hands. 

“ Taffy! Taffy! What have you got? Is it a cat? ” 
she said, and, putting down the mat, took a step on to the 
grass. 

Taffy retreated a little from the bush, barking himself 
sideways in his unnecessary excitement, and Phosie 
appeared between the leaves, closely followed by Little 
Gus. 

They all three stared at one another in blank dismay. 
The boy and girl knew they were discovered. The 
woman was too surprised at their sudden appearance to 
say a word. Taffy made the day hideous with piercing 
yelps. 

“ I am very sorry — we haven’t done any harm — ^we’ve 
only been sleeping under your bush — ” stammered Phosie. 

“Sleeping — under — our — bush! All night? Under 
the lilac bush? ” repeated the little woman in gasps. 

“Yes, but we’ll go away at once — ^we’re very honest 
people — we’re not thieves,’’ answered Phosie. “ Don’t 
be angry with us! We’re not burglars, truly! ’’ 

The words had a most unexpected effect on her aston- 
ished listener. 

The little woman threw back her head and gave an un- 
couth, short squeal of laughter, almost as painful to hear 
as the terrier’s barks. 

“ No, you don’t look like burglars, either of you! ” she 
exclaimed. “You poor children! You must see the 
master. I never heard of such a thing— sleeping under 
our lilac bush — good ’eavens! ” 

She turned towards the house. Phosie, bewildered 
and dazzled in the sunshine, pulled Little Gus after her. 


EUPHROSYNE AND MR REVEI.L 45 

“ Let’s cut! She’ll send for a cop! ” he whispered. 

Phosie took no notice of his words. They followed the 
woman into a dark, square hall, and down a steep flight 
of stairs into a kitchen at the back of the house, with the 
dog scuttling in front of them. 

The kitchen was plainly, but cheerily furnished, with a 
row of geraniums in pots on a table by the window, and 
a loud-ticking cuckoo clock hanging on one side of the 
fireplace. 

Just as they entered the room it struck seven and the 
mechanical bird, to their surprise, came out of his little 
house, said “ Cuck! ” and vanished, to reappear a second 
later with a loud “ Coo! ” after which he finally banged 
his door. Their conductress gave another of her peculiar 
laughs. 

“ It’s broke,” she explained, ” but the master won’t 
have it mended. He says it’s the only interesting cuckoo 
he’s ever met with living in a clock. He calls it a blithe 
newcomer, but I call it a gay old bird.” 

After a minute’s hesitation, as if she doubted the pru- 
dence of leaving them alone with the spoons, she asked 
Phosie and her companion to step into a small back yard, 
where there were a couple of old chairs, and ” make them- 
selves comfortable.” 

They sat there for nearly an hour, closely watched by 
Taffy, who seemed to consider himself their keeper, and 
occasionally cheered by a friendly nod through the glass 
door from the little woman as she went about her house- 
hold duties. 

Little Gus passed the time in sniffing and shuffling his 
feet. Phosie tried to fix her mind on plans for the future. 

At eight o’clock they were given a slice of bread and 
butter each, while a savoury smell of coffee and fried 
bacon from the kitchen stove made the boy positively 
writhe with envy. 

Soon afterwards the little woman opened the door and 
beckoned them. 


46 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


The master’s name is Mr Revell,” she said. “ I’ve 
told him about you and he says you’re both to go in.” 

Leading the way from the kitchen to the breakfast- 
room, also partially underground, she tapped at the door, 
opened it without waiting for an answer, and stood on one 
side for them to enter. 

Phosie, with heightened colour and a choking sensation 
of dryness in the mouth, went into the room first. Little 
Gus shrinking behind her. 

It was dim and sombre, for the sunshine could hardly 
penetrate through the trees and bushes of the garden. 
Phosie’s first impression was of heavy furniture, quanti- 
ties of pictures and ornaments, and a general effect of 
rich, if gloomy, colouring. 

A big table, placed near the window, was half covered 
by a white cloth, on which the breakfast was arranged, the 
other half being piled with books and papers. 

The man who sat at this table rose as they entered, 
moved by curiosity to look at them closely, for his house- 
keeper had given a highly-coloured description of the way 
they had leapt out of the lilac bush — like a couple of 
hunted tigers, she said, foaming at the mouth. 

He was a tall man of something beyond middle age, 
spare in figure, with a grey, thin beard, wisps of hair 
brushed forward from the back of his head, a big nose, 
and singularly bright eyes gleaming through gold-rimmed 
spectacles. 

He fidgeted abstractedly with the things on the table 
as he bent forward. His hands were long and bony, and 
he wore several big, old-fashioned rings. 

“Now then — ^now then — you ought not to hide under 
my lilac bush ! ” he began nervously. “ I was astonished 
to hear about it from my housekeeper. What do you 
mean by it ? Who are you, little people ? Where do you 
come from? ” 

Phosie, who suddenly found herself trembling, ad- 
vanced to the table, steadied herself by resting one hand 


EUPHROSYNE AND MR REVELL 47 

on it, and returned Mr RevelFs close scrutiny. She was 
pale and heavy-eyed; her brown, wavy hair was dis- 
hevelled; she had taken oh her hat and held it in her 
hand ; her shabby little cape was crushed and dusty. 

She was a deplorable little figure, dirty and untidy, but 
as she looked into his face, with the irresistible appeal of 
youth and innocence, he was suddenly moved to pity and 
interest and pleasure. He pitied her physical weakness, 
he was unexpectedly interested in what she had to say, 
but the sensation of pleasure was the strongest feeling 
of all. 

He had dreaded pathos, but there was no hint of a tear 
on her lashes, and her lips curved up and not down at the 
corners, and that is a little detail that makes all the differ- 
ence in the world when a mouth begins to quiver. 

Phosie was rapidly debating in her own mind the policy 
of telling him the truth at once, and this was the reason 
of the long silence before she answered his question. 

“ We have run away,” she said at last, but it doesn’t 
matter, for we have no relations or anybody else to worry 
about us.” 

“ Is the boy your brother? ” asked Mr ReveU. 

'‘No, but I am his only friend. Let me tell you about 
him ! May I tell you what we have done? ” 

“ Well, well! Be quick about it I ” said Mr Revell. 

He dropped back into his chair, dipping the salt spoon 
in and out of the salt while Phosie talked. She told her 
tale well, and she told him the absolute truth. 

Mr Revell kept his eyes fixed on her face. When she 
had finished and stopped, breathlessly, timidly waiting 
for his verdict on their flight, he looked at Gus for the 
first time. 

“ I understand your motives for running away from 
Airy Street,” he said in a kinder tone. “ But why bring 
the boy? ” 

Little Gus shuffled from one foot to the other, sniffed, 
and smeared his face with his cuff. 


48 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Why on earth bring that boy? ” repeated Mr Re veil, 
quite unmoved by Little Gus’s shyness and discomfort. 

He looked at him curiously, as if the boy were an inter- 
esting, but slightly unpleasant, beetle. 

Phosie turned and looked at him too. The question 
struck home. For a minute she marvelled at her own 
stupidity, but the next, ashamed of the thought, she 
threw her arms impetuously round Little Gus and held 
him close. 

Gus, after a second’s struggle for freedom, burst into 
tears and clasped her round the neck, hiding his face 
against her shoulder. 

“ Pray don’t let us have a scene! ” said Mr Revell. 

He rose, pushing back his chair noisily, rang a small 
bell on the breakfast-table, and began to fidget among the 
books and papers. The housekeeper entered. 

“ Have you seen a little book bound in red morocco, 
Mrs Bird? ” he asked, helplessly. “ I am sure I brought 
it home last night.” 

Mrs Bird, after glancing questioningly at the boy and 
girl, began to search, with more bustle, but as aimlessly 
as Mr Revell himself. Phosie’s quick eyes caught sight 
of the little book bound in red morocco under his chair. 
She picked it up. He smiled at her gratefully. 

” Mrs Bird, I want these young people to stop here to- 
day,” he said, pulling on his light overcoat, which the 
housekeeper had brought in on her arm. ” Perhaps 
you’ll make them comfortable? It may be very in- 
judicious, but I believe their story. I am confident that 
this girl has told me the truth. Truth, Mrs Bird, is 
occasionally as strange as fiction. Treat them, if you 
please, kindly, but don’t let them touch anything.” 

He said the last words very emphatically. 

“ Oh, how good you are! ” exclaimed Phosie, quickly 
putting Gus on one side and drawing close to Mr Revell. 
” But I think we ought to look for work and get a lodging. 
I — I suppose you don’t want a servant, do you? I’m 


EUPHROSYNE AND MR REVELL 49 

very strong, and Fm sure that Gus would be able to clean 
windows and knives very carefully, and so could I. We’ll 
do anything you tell us — any hard work — and indeed, 
indeed we’re honest.” 

” I don’t know — I don’t know — perhaps Mrs Bird can 
make you useful,” said Mr Revell. “ You can sleep here 
to-night, if Mrs Bird can pack you in — you must settle it 
all with Mrs Bird. Poor child! Poor child! Now, 
don’t talk to me — I’m late already — and it agitates me to 
be talked to — ^good-bye! Good-bye!” 

He put on his hat, gathered up his gloves, the TimeSy 
and his walking-stick, and made for the door. 

Phosie, too amazed at his goodness to utter any words 
of ordinary thanks, sprang forward as he opened it, and 
seized him by the hand. 

” May we stop here to-night? May I work for you? ” 
she cried. 

“Yes, yes, yes, but don’t worry! ” said Mr Revell, 
irritably. “You can stop here as long as you like, if you 
learn to be quiet and reasonable. Do as Mrs Bird tells 
you — and make that boy wash his face.” 

With these words, accompanied by kind, abstracted 
backward glances through his gleaming spectacles, Mr 
Revell left Euphrosyne and Little Gus in possession of a 
home. 

Although he was the least impulsive of human beings, 
intellectual, cool, conservative in habit and thought, it 
was not the first time, or the second or the third, that 
Henry Revell had done an unworldly, generous deed. 
Very few people suspected this trait in his character, and, 
like most men of his type, he was far too modest, and a 
little ashamed, to have it known. 


4 


CHAPTER VII 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 

H enry REVELL held an important post at the 
British Museum. 

His whole life had been devoted to the study of Art 
treasures; he was one of the best judges of pottery in 
England, and absorbed in his work. 

An Oxford man, son of a clergyman, he had never cared 
to be wealthy, even if the support of a widowed mother 
and younger sister, for all the years of his early manhood, 
had not drained his purse. His only brother, a handsome 
ne'er-do-weel, had emigrated to Canada, leaving Henry 
with all the family responsibilities, and only communi- 
cating with his people to ask for remittances. 

Henry Revell, who had never desired, as far as his 
family knew, to marry, lived for many years in quiet 
rooms in Bayswater, but a couple of years before the ad- 
vent of Phosie he had taken one of the oldest, dullest 
houses in The Stroll, Hammersmith. 

His principal reason for moving being a long-cherished 
desire to display his collection of pottery, it was not sur- 
prising that the best rooms in the house should be de- 
voted to the little museum. He possessed the true 
nature of the connoisseur, but much as he knew of in- 
trinsic values, he had often shown both originality and 
even a quaint, whimsical fancy in his own purchases. 

Of trained and severe taste, combined with keen judg- 
ment in his professional work at the British Museum, at 
home he took delight in the simplest pleasures. He had 
travelled extensively in bygone years ; but the new life 
50 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 


51 

of the old lands had utterly failed to turn him into the 
modern man of modern ideas. 

The picture-galleries, the museums, the ancient build- 
ings of cities were the only points he cared to remember. 
London itself was the London to him of Johnson and 
Swift, of Addison and Steele. He talked of the Burney 
family in Soho Square as if they were personal friends. 
Dickens and Thackeray were his up-to-date novelists. 
He chuckled over John Leech’s pictures as if they had 
just appeared in the current Punch, and he looked on the 
aestheticism of the eighties as a very promising movement 
of the minute. 

Little Mrs Bird, to whom he had grown accustomed in 
his Bayswater rooms, where she had been employed as 
cook, gratefully accepted the post of housekeeper at the 
house in The Stroll. Naturally of a cheerful disposition, 
she tried hard to adapt herself to her new surroundings, 
but her bustling ways and well-meaning officiousness 
jarred on Mr Revell, although it would never have entered 
his head to dismiss her. 

She possessed the supreme virtue in his eyes of never 
touching his curiosities. When it was necessary to clean 
a room he himself removed the pottery, pictures and 
books before going to the Museum in the morning, and 
returned them to their places when he got home at night. 

His intimate friends were all men of his own tastes and 
standing, learned men, and his greatest dissipation was 
to entertain them and their wives, a couple at a time, to 
a very quiet dinner at a certain old-fashioned restaurant 
where Mr Revell himself lunched every day. 

On rare occasions he invited some of his younger 
friends — shy, well-schooled girls for the most part — to 
tea at his house. Then Mrs Bird was requested to pro- 
vide seed cake and gingerbread, Mr Revell being under 
the delusion that these were considered luxuries by all 
young people. 

He lived very plainly himself, his only extravagance 


52 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


being a bottle now and again of exceptionally good wine. 
He smoked, read a great deal, and kept up a voluminous 
correspondence on literary subjects with two old college 
friends. 

One of them was his junior by several years, so Mr 
Revell invariably mentioned him as “ young Joe Ridge- 
way,” although he had been in business for nearly a 
quarter of a century, lived in the South of France, and 
paid a visit to England at intervals of about eight or ten 
years. 

The second, happening to be Mr RevelFs senior by a 
few months, was known as ” old Herbert Palgrave,” and 
excused, on the score of age, from travelling as far as 
London, although he only lived in Surrey. 

Phosie and Little Gus, left alone with the housekeeper 
in their unexpected refuge, at once tried in their different 
ways to make a good impression. 

The girl helped Mrs Bird wash the dishes and tidy the 
bedrooms, while Gus, on his own initiative, took the 
kitchen scuttle into the cellar and managed to hurt him- 
self rather badly by tumbling down the steep stairs, not 
to mention allowing the terrier to accompany him, a 
kindness which Taffy especially appreciated, as he had 
been washed on the previous day. 

” I can put you to sleep in the little box room at the 
top of the house, next to mine,” said Mrs Bird to Phosie. 
” But the boy must have a bed downstairs. I don’t sup- 
pose you mind sleeping in the basement, do you, boy? ” 

She led the way to a narrow room, half filled with pack- 
ing cases and with a dreary window overlooking the un- 
kempt garden. Little Gus, who had been accustomed to 
sleeping in a back kitchen, in company with black- 
beetles and mice, was delighted with his new apartment, 
and eagerly helped to move the packing cases and put up 
a chair bedstead. When an old washstand had been 
found in the cellar, and a chair added from the kitchen, 
he looked round with great satisfaction. 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 


53 

‘^Cosy!” he said. “Fine! What’s all the boxes 
for? ” 

“ The master packed his treasures in them,” explained 
the housekeeper. “ Don’t you touch them.” 

Phosie’s room was almost as sparely furnished, but she 
cried with joy to call it hers. Her gratitude to Henry 
Revell was painful to bear; no words could express it; 
it positively made her heart ache. 

Mrs Bird was a great talker, and, when she was out of 
her master’s hearing, a great laugher. She entertained 
Phosie with lengthy stories of herself, her late husband, 
and all her relations. Being used to the sole society of 
Taffy and a cat, she found it most exciting to have a 
human being for a listener. 

Mr Revell returned to dinner at seven o’clock. When 
Phosie heard the click of his key in the door she stood still 
on the stairs, happening to be descending at that minute 
from the room where she was to sleep, at the top of the 
house, overcome with shyness. 

Her impulse was to run away, but after a minute to 
pull herself together, she boldly advanced and met him in 
the hall. He peered at her curiously, for the gas was 
turned low, and he could not see her face. 

“ Oh, the little girl ! ” he exclaimed. “ I had forgotten 
you for the minute. Yes! Well, you haven’t run away 
again? ” 

“ You speak as if running away were a habit of mine,” 
she answered, unable to keep from smiling out of sheer 
pleasure at seeing him smile. 

“ So it is, isn’t it? ” he said. “ How do I know you 
haven’t run away from half a dozen schools as well as 
from Airy Street ? You don’t speak like a general servant 
at a lodging-house. I think you are playing me a trick. 
I believe you’re a fairy princess in disguise! ” 

Vastly amused at his little joke, Mr Revell led her by 
the hand down into the breakfast-room, where the table 
was set for his dinner. He looked at her long and search- 


54 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


ingly. Washed, brushed, and refreshed by food and 
sleep, she had lost the abject look which had touched his 
heart in the morning. 

Her eyes were brimming over with tears — clear, dark- 
fringed, grey eyes — and her usually smiling mouth 
quivered with unspoken words of gratitude. But even 
at that emotional minute, that was not half so alarm- 
ing as her new friend had anticipated, there was 
something baffling in Phosie’s expression. The spirit 
that possessed so fair a dwelling was an unchange- 
ably mischievous, happy, illusive spirit — a spirit of 
mirth. 

“ I’m rather a lonely man,” said Mr Revell, slowly. 
“ But if you can be content to stop here, Euphrosyne — 
you see I remember your Greek name — I will do my best 
to take care of you. Indeed, I am honoured by your 
presence,” he continued whimsically. “You are the 
namesake of the most gracious of the Three Graces, a 
daughter of Zeus and Eurynome, sister of Aglaia and 
Thalia; and do you know that Euphrosyne was de- 
scended from the most ancient deities of all, born of the 
ocean, the earth, and the air. I wonder whether you can 
be trusted.” 

“ I’ll always tell you the truth — ” she began earnestly, 
but he interrupted quickly. 

“ I mean, trusted not to smash anything,” said Mr 
Revell. “ Now, Mrs Bird is a treasure, quite a treasure, 
but utterly unreliable. As careless as a child of a year 
old.” 

“ Do give me a chance! ” pleaded Phosie “ I have 
very safe fingers. I never remember breaking any of Mrs 
Simmons’s crockery. Now Little Gus — ” 

“Little Gus? Is that the boy?” asked Mr Revell. 
“ I wouldn’t allow him to handle any of my things for 
the world. He’s got hands like a frog’s feet — like star- 
fish — they make me shudder. I don’t want to see him 
again.” 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 


55 

“ If he goes away, I must go,” said Phosie, blanching 
at the thought. 

Mr Revell took off his spectacles and polished them 
thoughtfully on his coloured silk handkerchief. Then he 
put them on again and Phosie’s anxious face came into 
focus. He was almost blind without glasses. 

“ If Mrs Bird can make him useful he can stop, but 
I can’t have him on the same footing as yourself, 
Euphrosyne,” he said, with a touch of severity. “ He is 
one of those undeveloped creatures whose proper place is 
a glass bottle in a laboratory, something between the 
monkey and the man, without the quickness of the one 
or the possibilities of the other. He ought not to have 
been bom, that’s the real truth of the matter.” 

” Oh, Mr Revell! ” cried Phosie. 

” Well, my dear child, he is your property, not mine. 
I regard him in the same light as the terrier. He is quite 
at liberty to live in the house, if he doesn’t make a noise 
or worry me.” 

Phosie, with one little sigh of regret, accepted the 
situation. 

Nobody wanted Little Gus. All the more reason that 
she should cherish him. 

” Have you seen over the house? ” asked Mr Revell. 

” Only the little room on the top floor, the box-room, 
and Mrs Bird’s bedroom,” replied Phosie. 

” I will show you everything myself to-morrow morn- 
ing,” he said. 

The following day was Sunday. Mr Revell, according 
to his invariable custom, breakfasted half an hour later 
and ate a poached egg on toast instead of his usual por- 
ridge. He preferred porridge, but his old landlady in 
Bayswater having established the egg precedent he had 
mentioned it to Mrs Bird, as a matter of course, when 
first engaging her services. 

At about ten o’clock he rang the bell for Phosie, who 
instantly appeared. 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


56 

She had neatly plaited her long hair and wore one of 
the housekeeper’s aprons over her old frock. In her 
bodice she had pinned a small bunch of wild roses from a 
neglected bush in the garden. Mr Revell was as much 
s rprised to hear they grew in his own garden as he would 
have been if she had appeared with the rarest orchid and 
told him the same fact. 

He gravely led the way upstairs, and ushered her into 
the largest room in the house on the ground floor. The 
blinds were lowered ; there was a peculiarly close, but not 
unpleasant smell, suggestive of cedar wood; the folding 
doors between the front and back rooms had been re- 
moved, and the floor was covered with dark linoleum. 

Mr Revell pulled up the blinds. Phosie found herself 
surrounded by rare and beautiful works of art. Down 
the centre of the rooms, reaching from end to end, was a 
three-storied table, or stand, laden with pottery. 

The walls were hung with china plates and old, flat 
dishes ; a couple of high cases, with glass doors, stood on 
either side of the front room, and in the back room was an 
ancient spinet. Mounting guard over the empty grate, 
which was most inappropriately filled with a bright green 
paper “ waterfall ” — Mrs Bird’s purchase — was a tall 
Chinese stork in bronze, over six feet high, and in one 
corner was a finely- wrought suit of armour, looking, with 
its closed visor, like a real man in the shadows. 

The front room on the floor above was even more 
crowded with antique treasures, which had overflowed 
into Mr Revell’s bedroom behind it, and even the stair- 
case was adorned with quaint and curious “ finds ” of 
the collector — barbarous weapons, old prints, strange 
garments, Japanese scrolls, framed samplers. 

It was like a new world to Phosie, or rather the old 
world of a fairy tale, where everything she touched had 
its history to unfold. 

Her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. Mr Revell’s 
bony fingers, grasping her warm little hand, guided her 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 


57 

through the old furniture and round the laden cases. 
Slowly the beauty of form in vase and vessel made itself 
felt, and the lurking loveliness of colour grew out of the 
darkness. 

He lifted down a piece of Derby china, comparing the 
rich gros-blue and deep pink, but her eyes wandered in 
greater admiration to the flush of the rose in a Sevres vase. 

“Very pretty! Very pretty!” agreed Mr Revell. 
“ But look at this little casket, Euphrosyne. Here’s a 
jewel box for a runaway princess! ” 

It was in three shades of amber, decorated with figures 
in carved ivory, the work of a cunning Sicilian. Phosie 
was allowed to open it, Mr Revell’s fingers hovering over 
hers, while he murmured a prolonged — “ Careful ! Care- 
ful!” Within the casket lay a quaint Chinese chate- 
laine of silver and pale jade. 

He drew it out and held it against her side, while the 
young girl’s thoughts flew to an old-world satin gown, 
with a lace fichu round her shoulders and mittens to her 
elbows. She gave a laugh of pleasure, glancing down at 
the captivating chatelaine. 

“ We’re getting frivolous! ” said Mr Revell. 

So he returned the glowing casket to its shelf and 
showed her a plaque of white biscuit. 

“ Best specimen of Bristol work,” he said. “And 
here’s a rare bit of Worcester — look at it, Euphrosyne ! 
The colour of lapis -lazuli, adorned with floral sprays — 
only look at it! ” 

Phosie obeyed in admiring silence. Mr Revell’s eyes 
beamed through his spectacles, but it was not wholly 
artistic appreciation of his rare bit of Worcester. He had 
snapped it up for a mere song when it was neglected and 
overlooked, by some mischance, at one of the biggest 
auction rooms in London. That was a fact never to be 
forgotten. He had told the story dozens of times, and 
he told it again to Phosie, chuckling and gloating over his 
bargain. 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


58 

This led him to descriptions of memorable sales in 
Paris, Berlin, Vienna; old anecdotes of art collectors; 
his personal “discoveries”; the strange vicissitudes of 
famous pictures ; the rare charm of cameos and intaglios ; 
the beauty of enamels — Mr Revell was the happy pos- 
sessor of eighteenth-century specimens of the delicate 
Bilston and Battersea work — the value of early Chelsea 
porcelain; the unending interest in old silver — so his talk 
rambled on and on and on. 

Phosie listened with closest attention; once or twice 
the quiet rooms were filled with her gay laughter, and she 
learned, in a single lesson, to appreciate the unswerving 
patience, the innate refinement, the fine training of eye 
and taste which distinguish such men as Henry Revell. 

The cases which she had noticed, on first entering the 
biggest rooms, were filled with his collection of scent 
bottles and powder boxes, together with a number of 
small Chinese bronzes. These pretty things delighted 
Phosie, and Mr Revell, after much hesitation, allowed her 
to lift them off the narrow shelves — delighted, in his 
turn, by the firmness and care with which she handled 
them. 

“ What small, dainty fingers! ” he exclaimed, as she 
turned and twisted a silver-gilt pendant scent-case, with 
enamelled pansies on a white ground. 

“ Will you trust me to touch all your things? ” asked 
Phosie. 

The worried expression, that had been absent all the 
morning, returned to Mr Revell’s face. 

“ I don’t know. I really can’t say,” he answered. 
“ Young people are so very reckless. You must give me 
time to make up my mind, my dear child, for I never do 
anything in a hurry. Although I live in the rush and fuss 
of modern life it doesn’t suit me at all. I ought to have 
been born in another era — ^say the fourteenth century. 
Then I should have gone into a monastery, I expect, and 
spent my life illuminating missals.” 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 


59 

“ I wonder what he means by the modern rush and 
fuss? ” thought Phosie. 

The house was absolutely quiet, for Mrs Bird had strict 
orders to keep the kitchen door shut, to save her master 
from the sound of her voice or Taffy’s occasional barking. 

The dark breakfast-room was dull and sunless. Mr 
Revell, after thoroughly polishing his spectacle glasses, a 
habit of his which Phosie already knew, selected a book 
from the shelves, opened it at a particular page, and 
passed it to the girl. 

“ Read aloud, my dear, if you don’t object,” he said. 
“ Read slowly and mind your stops.” 

The book was Marcus Aurelius, and Phosie, only too 
pleased to do anything he asked, began to read. Before 
she had turned half a dozen pages Mr Revell was fast 
asleep. Made aware of the fact by the sound of a gentle 
snore, she ventured to raise her eyes and saw that his 
body had sunk low in his chair, and his spectacles nearly 
to the end of his nose. He looked very old, and his 
hands, with their yellow nails and heavy gold rings slip- 
ping down to the knuckles, were the colour of old parch- 
ment. 

Phosie read on mechanically, and the words dropped 
from her lips with no expression beyond the unconscious, 
incomplete music of youth in her voice : 

” Time is like a rapid river, and a rushing torrent of all 
that comes and passes. A thing is no sooner well come, 
but it is past ; and then another is born after it, and this 
too will be carried away. Whatever happens is as 
common and well known as a rose in the spring, or an 
apple in autumn.” 

For two hours she went on reading, and at intervals Mr 
Revell awoke, nodded and smiled if she happened to 
glance at him, pushed up his spectacles and slept again. 

When the housekeeper entered with the tray for early 
dinner, he took the book out of Phosie ’s hand and marked 
the place with a strip of postcard — all postcards he re- 


6o 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


ceivedwere cut into strips for this purpose — and returned 
it to the shelf. 

“ Whatever you do, never turn down the page of a 
book,” he said to her. “ There is only one deeper insult 
you can offer to the great body of craftsmen who print 
our books, and that is to wet your thumb when you turn 
the leaves. Remember that, Euphrosyne! ” 

Phosie left him carving his little joint of roast mutton 
and went towards the kitchen, to dine with Mrs Bird and 
Little Gus. 

The back door was open and Taffy was tearing round 
the garden. Phosie stepped out into the sunshine. It 
was past two o’clock. She blinked and shaded her eyes 
with one hand. 

The grass was long and unkempt, and the flower-beds 
overgrown with weeds. A giant wild convolvulus twined 
about the privet hedge from end to end, here and there 
flaunting a lovely blossom. 

The house behind her was a house of gloom, in spite of 
all its treasures, and she suddenly felt like a prisoner set 
free. After one swift glance at the blank windows, she 
spread out her arms, as Little Gus had seen her do in the 
area at Airy Street, and danced down the garden on the 
tips of her toes, swinging and swaying to an unheard 
melody in her own brain. 

On reaching the broken-down wall, at the farther end, 
she stopped dancing and gathered a handful of dandelions 
and puff balls, childishly blowing the seeds into the air, 
where they floated like fairy feathers. 

Then she began to romp with the dog, snatching up the 
old rubber ball he had dropped at her feet and keeping it 
just high enough to tempt him to crazy leaps, then stoop- 
ing down and teasing him by little darts and rushes, while 
Taffy, in a frenzy of delight, jumped from side to side, 
barked and gasped, his eyes brimming over, his red tongue 
hanging out, every wiry hair on his body quivering. 

Away flew the ball and they both gave chase, the terrier 


A HOUSE OF GLOOM 


6i 

winning by the length of a paw, but before he could get a 
grip on the prize the girl had snatched it away and was 
kneeling down in front of him, with the ball flying from 
hand to hand, and all the splendid sport — the teasing, 
the toss, the chase, the possession — ^began over again. 
Taffy had not enjoyed himself so much in all his puppy 
days. 

Phosie gave the ball a final spin to the end of the 
garden, when she was tired out, and danced once more 
down the grassy, gravel path. Then she smoothed away 
the hair blown over her eyes, pressed her lips demurely 
together, and re-entered the house in a slow, dignified 
manner. 


CHAPTER VIII 


HOW THE YEARS PASSED 

T DUNNO what to do — ^upon my word, I dunno! 

X said Little Gus. 

What are you talking about, dear? ” asked Phosie, 
turning round from the case where she was arranging Mr 
Revell’s scent bottles. 

She had been cleaning the case and was now returning 
them to their narrow shelves. It was a dainty task and 
had been the subject of several conversations between 
Phosie and her guardian. He had always been accus- 
tomed to placing the Chinese specimens on the top 
shelves ; she was in favour of giving the quaint English 
patch-boxes the place of honour. 

Mr Revell had gone to his work that morning in a 
pleasurable state of uncertainty. He had grown 
to rely on her good taste, but at the same time there 
was no getting over the fact that the Chinese speci- 
mens had looked remarkably handsome on the top 
shelves ! 

Little Gus had suddenly appeared at the door, while 
the important change was in progress, with a book in his 
hand. He had not overcome the habit of sniffing, per- 
haps because he always managed to stand in a draught, 
and was very rarely without a cold, passing off or about 
to develop. 

“ I dunno what to make of it. I can’t get it funda- 
mentally! ” 

He said the last word twice, for Little Gus, having got 
beyond the monosyllabic conversation of his early youth, 
62 


HOW THE YEARS PASSED 63 

was inclined to repeat any long words he could re- 
member in and out of season. He had heard Mr 
Revell say “ fundamentally ” a few days before, 
asked Phosie to look it out for him in the dictionary, 
and promptly tried its effect on Mrs Bird by remarking 
that fundamentally potatoes were more digestible than 
turnips. 

Phosie put down the fine silk handkerchief with 
which she dusted the shelves, and crossed the room. 
His book was a small, dog’s-eared Primer of English 
grammar. 

“ What is it you can’t grasp? ” she asked, kindly. 

Little Gus, who was exactly like the Little Gus of the 
old days grown taller, dragged his thumb comprehen- 
sively down the open page. 

All of it, Phosie, adverbs and aj’tives and this here 
parsing, can’t make head or tail of it. Frin’stance, why 
don’t they tell you when to say ‘ was ’ and when to say 
* were ’? ” 

“ They do tell you, Gus. Let me find the place.” 

Phosie pulled a couple of chairs close together and they 
sat down side by side. 

It was the quiet hour of the afternoon, devotea by the 
girl to the care of Mr Revell’s little museum, and by the 
boy to laborious preparation of the lessons she had 
arranged for him in the morning. 

Gus’s education had cost her a great deal of thought, 
for although Mr Revell treated him kindly and he earned 
his living by steady work in house and garden. Little Gus 
was an object of indifference, if not of positive dislike, to 
their patron. 

Three years had passed since the flight from Airy 
Street. Lonely, happy, imchanging years! 

Phosie had lived in a world of books. Enchanted as 
she was by poetry and romance, legend and folk lore, her 
reading had not been confined to these fascinating sub- 
jects. It was characteristic of Mr Revell that he should 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


64 

combine the strictest ideas of mid- Victorian propriety 
concerning the behaviour of young ladies with absolute 
catholicity in regard to their books. 

As Eddy Moore had trusted Phosie not to burn her 
fingers in lighting the gas, so Mr Revell trusted her not to 
hurt herself, in a deeper sense, with base or pernicious 
reading. Humour was the quality, so rarely appreciated 
by a young girl, which appealed to Phosie in the printed 
page. It was not that she always wanted to be laughing, 
but that her amusement was so genuine, so hearty, so 
quick in response to wit or pleasure, that it struck the key- 
note of her character. 

She had none of the ordinary interests of a girl of her 
age — games, schoolfellows, dress or accomplishments. 
Mrs Bird had taught her to cook, but she had long out- 
stripped her mistress, and Mr RevelFs menu was no longer 
confined to chops all the week and a joint of roast mutton 
on Sunday. 

Much of her time was devoted to the garden ; at first 
it seemed a hopeless task, for the unconquerable weeds 
fought for their existence inch by inch. Little Gus and 
Euphrosyne, with dogged patience, dug and delved. 
Their labour was rewarded, the first summer after they 
lived in The Stroll, by a few handfuls of nasturtiums, 
a goodly crop of marigolds, and as many pansies 
and double daisies as six penn5worth of roots could 
supply. 

Mr Revell, the following spring, presented Phosie with 
a sovereign to spend on garden tools. It was his first 
gift and it filled her with joyful surprise. Her assistant 
gardener’s pleasure was almost as great. 

“ Think what we can do with twenty shillings! ’ said 
Phosie. 

Little Gus proposed building a hothouse, refusing to 
see any difficulty in supplying Covent Garden with grapes 
and tomatoes. 

Shortly afterwards, without any preliminary remark. 


HOW THE YEARS PASSED 65 

Mr Revell put two more golden coins into Phosie’s 
hand. 

“ Buy yourself a new jacket! ” he said, and hurried 
away, before she could thank him. 

Mr Revell meant to include all necessary garments in 
the word “ jacket.” 

From that time forward he gave her five shillings 
every week, but as she had to clothe Little Gus as well as 
herself, for it never occurred to their protector to give 
anything to the boy, it was impossible for her to save any 
money. But that did not trouble Phosie in the least, for 
she had inherited none of her father’s dread of poverty. 

She had no friends, except the little girl next door, a 
round-faced, flaxen-haired doll of a child, several years 
younger than herself, whom she admired and loved. Her 
name was Lily Parlow. The only child of middle-aged 
parents, she was a spoilt, selfish little creature, to whom 
her mother talked as if she were a woman, who read the 
newspapers aloud to her father, and who possessed an 
amazing knowledge of the names and private affairs of 
popular actors and actresses. Mrs Parlow reminded 
Phosie of poor Mrs Simmons of Airy Street in her passion 
for the theatre. 

The days followed one another, at the gloomy house in 
The Stroll, like sombre beads sHpping down a string, 
every one just like the last. 

Phosie rose early and helped Mrs Bird, breakfasted 
with Mr Revell, when he usually held forth on such topics 
as Evolution, Egyptian Mythology, the recent discoveries 
in chemistry, or the early history of the Christian Church ; 
and spent the remainder of the morning in housework, 
teaching Gus, and gardening. 

In the afternoon she read and went for a walk, unless 
there was any sewing to be done or Lily Parlow wanted 
to be amused. When Mr Revell returned he always 
found her waiting for him, a quiet, attentive listener, 
quick of step and soft of voice. 

5 


66 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


They dined together, and in the evening Phosie read 
aloud, or they played chess, or she wrote from his dicta- 
tion — ^long, discursive letters to his two old college 
friends in France and Surrey. 

There was no variety in Mr Revell’s letters; they 
always began in the same way, “ My dear Joe ” to the 
business man in France, and “ My dear Herbert ” to the 
professional man in Surrey, and ended with the cold 
words, Yours faithfully, Henry R. Revell.” 

He was never demonstrative. Phosie had insensibly 
adapted her character to his, suppressing her natural 
gaiety as much as she possibly could, and tr5nng to look 
at the world as he did through his gold-rimmed spec- 
tacles as a great museum, a school of thought, a grave old 
world full of records of the past. 

She was never unhappy, or even melancholy, but at 
times she was conscious of a subtle restraint, as if her 
spirit — the spirit of the innermost — were lost in a grey 
mist. 

Little Gus, as he pored over his English grammar on 
the summer afternoon when Phosie was arranging Mr 
Revell’s scent-bottles, looked, as he felt, a hopeless faUure. 
Three years of good living and care had indeed improved 
his appearance; he was not so thin; the haggard, un- 
boyish expression had left his face; but his weak eyes 
and narrow brow, his mouth always a little open, and the 
vague, questioning, puzzled lines on his forehead, were 
all suggestive of the undeveloped, narrow mind. 

There was no obstinacy in Gus and no imagination. 
Mr Revell, as has been said already, ignored his existence. 
Mrs Bird treated him like a child, and even Miss Lily 
Parlow snubbed and laughed at him. 

Although he was growing quickly, like one of his own 
unsuccessful, weedy sunflowers, all stalk and no beauty, 
everybody called him “ Little Gus.” Phosie, on dis- 
covering that he did not remember, if he had ever 
known, his surname, had decided to choose one for him. 


HOW THE YEARS PASSED 67 

She found it difficult to make up her mind whether it 
should be Stewart or Cromwell, her admiration being 
divided at the time between Charles I. and the Lord 
Protector. 

Gus was quite indifferent, and after his suggestion of 
Potts as an alternative — ^his former master, the butcher, 
had been Mr Potts — ^he meekly agreed to adopting both 
names, and learned the meaning of the h5q)hen. 

“ Augustus Stewart-Cromwell ” was pleasing to 
Phosie’s ear and her sense of humour, while Little Gus 
himself spent many happy hours in filling a penny copy- 
book with his imposing signature. 

“ I dunno what to make of grammar,” he said> for the 
third time. “ I dunno why they invented it.” 

Phosie, also for the third time, told him to close the 
book and not to worry any more that day. She had gone 
back to her work. Gus still sat on the edge of his chair, 
fingering the Primer. 

” But a feller has got to learn,” he said. “ A feller 
ought to know, fundamentally, aU this sort o’ thing, 
Phosie.” 

” You’re quite right, Gus,” agreed Phosie, absently, 
admiring a dainty Italian patch-box in rock crystal 
which lay in her palm. 

“ Then why can’t I manage it? What’s the matter 
with me? ” said Gus. 

Phosie, restoring the patch-box to its nook and taking 
out a bloodstone scent-bottle, mounted in gold, only 
shook her head, smiling at him. She had rarely seen him 
so serious. 

” I want to learn! I want to be more like you! ” he 
blurted out. ” I know he thinks I’m only a fool — ” 

Do you mean Mr Revell? ” she interrupted. 

“ Yes. But I’m not a fool. I want to learn. I try 
hard, but it’s no use. I can’t get the hang of things. I 
don’t understand half what people say, but I suppose I’m 
all right — ain’t I? — fundamentally?” 


68 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Little Gus clung to his word, and once more repeated 
it, taking a step towards Phosie, with his hands stretched 
out. 

She turned her back to the case and looked at him in 
surprise. 

The light from a window fell on his face. It gave her 
a shock, for she suddenly realised that Little Gus was 
growing up. He was trying to imderstand his own 
deficiencies, and she saw the pain and doubt of his grop- 
ing mind struggling for expression. 

“ Dear! ” she said affectionately. ‘‘ Of course you are 
all right, but you must be patient. You can’t learn 
easily, and the books — ” 

“ Oh, I don’t mean book learning! ” he interrupted. 
“ I mean — I mean I want to be clever, Phosie. I want 
to be like other fellers. I’m no good to nobody. They 
wouldn’t care if I was dead! ” 

“I should care!” cried Phosie. “Don’t you talk 
such nonsense.” 

She put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a little 
shake. Then she tilted up his chin with one finger and 
laughed at him. 

That was the best way to treat Little Gus. Phosie’s 
intuition served her in better stead than other people’s 
reason. To argue with him and endeavour to sharpen 
his wits by discussion, or to encourage introspection, 
would have only deepened his trouble. She had helped 
him in childhood by her courage and decision ; she helped 
him now by her praise and approbation. He was not 
bom to buffet with the strong winds and rough seas of 
life. He was only happy in soft sunshine and pleasant 
breezes. 

The straining look in his face died away. His moment 
of bitterness was forgotten. 

He gaily offered to help her dust the scent-bottles and 
powder-boxes. The mere suggestion would have made 
Mr Revell shudder. Phosie only smiled, bending over 


HOW THE YEARS PASSED 69 

a blue Persian perfume sprinkler. She tactfully rejected 
his help, and Gus returned to the attack on his English 
grammar. 

Phosie finished her work with great satisfaction to 
herself. There was only one thing in the house that she 
liked better than the case of scent-bottles, and that was 
a drawer in Mr Revell’s desk which contained a box of 
quaint old rings. It was kept locked, but he trusted her 
with the key. 

They were valuable posy rings, singularly attractive 
to Phosie. She was never tired of slipping them on to her 
fingers, although they were nearly aU too big for her, and 
reading the fond, quaint inscriptions — 

“ Accept this gift of honest love 
That never could nor can remove.” 

“ My promise past 
Shall always last.” 

“ In constancie 
I live and die.” 

Her favourite was made of little gold hearts, set with 
turquoise, and engraved “ You have me hart.’' It 
happened to fit the third finger of her left hand. A heavy 
Russian ring of chased silver looked very handsome on 
her thumb, and the greatest treasure of all, a dull gold 
duplex hoop faintly engraved with palm leaves, she 
always placed on the first finger. 

The rings set with precious stones were kept in a box 
at the back of the drawer. Phosie was also entrusted 
with the key of this box. There was only one diamond, 
but exactly a dozen other gems of equal beauty, if lesser 
value — a too pale ruby, a moss agate, a soft beryl, a fiery 
opal, a deep garnet, a cloudy moonstone, a gleaming cats- 
eye, a sapphire that mirrored a star, a gorgeous topaz, a 
mysterious chalcedony, a severe onyx, and a beamy pearl. 

I love them all ! ” said Euphrosyne to Mr ReveU. 


70 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


'‘You can play with them whenever you like,” he 
answered. 

His absolute trust in her care of his treasures was the 
greatest proof he ever gave, year after year, that the lov- 
ing girl had won a place in his heart. 


CHAPTER IX 


JULES 


NE afternoon, in early autumn, Euphrosyne and 



w Little Gus were walking together over Barnes 
Common. 

The sun was hanging, a red ball, low in the sky. Every 
tree and bush, even the dried brown grass, was touched 
with red-gold light. A robin perched on the bare boughs 
of a hawthorn; a flock of crows swept across the sky; 
the ever-busy sparrows hopped and chirruped on path 
and sward. 

There was a cold wind whipping the dead leaves over 
the ground and shaking the branches of the trees. Two 
or three little parties of children hmited vainly for black- 
berries among the bushes. The main roads over the 
Common were busy with carts and motors. A few 
scattered cyclists, stooping to conquer, rode gallantly 
against the wind in one direction, or airily coasted in the 
other. 

Phosie was telling Little Gus the story of one of Feni- 
more Cooper’s novels, chapter by chapter, and wholly 
absorbed in the plot. She imagined herself on the 
prairies, and saw nothing of the endless rows of London 
houses which surround the little patch of open land, 
anxiously and covetously mounting guard over it. 

Gus listened like a child, taking every strange incident 
for granted, very rarely moved to surprise and never 
wearied. He had listened in this way, at second hand, 
to nearly all of Scott’s novels and much of Dumas, 
Dickens and Thackeray, but Phosie pleased him best with 


72 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


detective stories of secret murders and unusual crimes, 
for he was morbidly curious to hear of horrors, but only 
moved to incredulity, not unmixed with contempt, by 
fanciful or weird tales. 

It was dark when they reached The Stroll. Phosie, 
ending her story as sharply as if she had literally closed 
the book with a bang, ran up the steps and rapped smartly 
at the door. Being past the hour of Mr Revell’s return 
she knew he would expect to find her at home. 

“ Oh, Tm so sorry — ” she began as the door opened, 
and then stopped. It was not Mrs Bird whb stood before 
her, or Mr Revell, but a strange man. A look of intense 
amazement came into her face. 

’Ullo! ” she heard Little Gus say, feebly, behind her. 

“ Of course you are surprised — I must apologise — Miss 
Moore, I think? ” said the stranger, and he put out his 
hand, smiling broadly at her blank expression. 

“ Yes," said Phosie. “ Who are you? " 

The stranger laughed outright at the blunt question. 

He was a young man, short, thick-set, clean-shaven, 
with noticeably white teeth and big, clear, brown eyes. 

“ I am Mr Revell’s nephew, just arrived from the other 
side of the world," he replied, opening the door wider for 
Phosie and her companion to enter. “ My uncle has been 
telling me about you both. I am very pleased to meet 
you." 

Again he extended his hand, first to the girl and then 
to Gus. Phosie, who was very quick in the sense of 
touch, found it was warm and soft through her glove. It 
felt like a woman’s hand. 

He stood on one side to let her pass, and, when she was 
in the hall, closed the door. 

She was instantly conscious of a sense of oppression. 
He seemed to have shut out the vital air. An indescrib- 
able feeling of weakness swept over her; it was not 
physical weakness, but a darkening of the spirit, alien to 
her nature and never experienced before. 


JULES 


73 


Phosie was astonished at herself. What was the 
matter? She looked helplessly at Little Gus, stumbling 
against the furniture in the semi-darkness, and then she 
looked again at the stranger. 

He smiled in a most friendly, kind manner. The cloud 
lightened — ^lifted — ^was gone. 

“ Is that Euphrosyne? ” said Mr Revell’s voice from 
the breakfast-room. 

She ran downstairs. Her old friend blinked at her 
nervously and she saw that he was agitated. 

“ A great surprise, my dear! ” he said. “ This is my 
brother’s son — ^poor Jules’s son — you have heard me 
speak of my brother Jules? ” 

Yes, Mr ReveU.” 

“ Dear me! Dear me! It only seems yesterday that 
he went away. Poor little Ju! ” he continued, polishing 
his spectacles over and over again. “ I can hardly realise 
that he is a married man with a grown-up boy ! He has 
sent me this letter, Phosie; read it, my dear. Sit down, 
Jules, sit down! ” 

The young man, who had stood by the door all this 
time, looking at his uncle, now turned his eyes on the girl. 

He had arrived early in the afternoon, several hours be- 
fore Mr Revell’s return from the Museum, and heard her 
story, with characteristic exaggerations, from Mrs Bird 
It had made him curious to see her. He had never heard 
of anything so ridiculous, or so delightful, as his uncle’s 
goodness. 

Phosie sat down at the table, intent on the letter from Mr 
Revell’s brother. Her face was partly shaded by the brim 
of her hat, but the light of the lamp fell on her mouth and 
chin, and Jules Revell saw that her skin was white and 
clear, while her lips showed the exquisite colouring that 
no word can exactly describe — ^red is too harsh, pink is too 
feeble — colouring that suggests the bloom of a flower petal. 

She bent close to the lamp. He could see the pretty 
nose— the thought passed through his mind how rarely 


74 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


one sees a pretty nose — and the small, well-shaped ear. 
Her eyes were still in shadow. He could see where her 
light brown hair curled into little rings, little broken 
hoops, soft and caressing, little sunny waves breaking 
away from the darker coil on the nape of her 
neck. 

She found it hard to believe that this letter, effusive 
and intimate, could have been written by a brother of 
Henry Revell. It was to introduce his boy, Jules 
Junior ” as he called him, and he actually addressed the 
dried-up art collector as “ Dearest Harry " and “ Good 
old Hal.” 

Having finished the affectionate scrawl, Phosie passed 
it back to Mr Revell and turned to the visitor. 

” I’m sure aU your people will be very pleased to see 
you! ” she exclaimed. 

Jules laughed. He was not at all sure of it himself. 
His uncle’s greeting had been far from demonstrative. 

“ I hope to make m57self agreeable,” he said, “ I am 
not an aggressive Canadian, Miss Moore. I reaUy believe 
you would take me for an Englishman. You won’t find 
me the typical Colonial cousin out of a novel. I never 
‘ calculate ’ or ‘ guess.’ I am not a young millionaire, 
but at the same time I have plenty of money for my trip. 
I haven’t come, like a prodigal, to waste my uncle’s sub- 
stance or abuse his hospitality.” 

Phosie wondered how many times he had used the 
personal pronoun in a single sentence. 

“ Where are you stopping, Jules? ” asked Mr Revell, 
anxiously. “We are really so crowded in this house 
that I’m afraid — ’ 

“ Now, say, uncle! ” interrupted the young man, with 
the Canadian inflexion in his voice he had just disavowed, 
“ don’t you worry about that. I’ve got a room at Scott’s 
Hotel, ’way over there in Bloomsbury. It’s a pleasant 
part of the town, I am told. You’ll only see me now and 
then.” 


JULES 


75 

“ I shall always be delighted, Jules,'’ began Mr Revell, 
but his nephew again interrupted him. 

“ You’re very kind, but I’m sure you lead a busy life. 
My dad knows all about that.” 

He did not repeat his father’s actual words — ” Your 
Uncle Henry is always burrowing into the earth, more 
like a mole than a man, after dead men’s treasures.” 

Phosie said nothing. She saw that the visitor had dis- 
turbed her guardian’s usual serenity, and wondered 
whether he would be invited to dinner. 

There was a somewhat embarrassing silence. Mr 
Revell fidgeted with the books on the table. Jules 
glanced round the room. It gave him an inspiration. 

” Is it true, uncle,” he said suddenly, “ that you have 
a collection of — of — curios? I’m intensely interested in 
anything antique.” 

Mr Revell’s face brightened. 

” How unlike your dear father! ” he exclaimed. “I 
must show you my collection of English pottery. I have 
a collection also of old silver, but it isn’t safe to keep it in 
a house like this. Moth and rust have no chance of 
corrupting my treasures since I got Euphrosyne to take 
care of them, but thieves might break in and steal. I’ll 
take you over the house when we’ve had our dinner.” 

Phosie felt relieved. The guest was not to be sent 
away without a meal. She hurried out of the room to 
advise and help Mrs Bird in the preparations. 

She was greatly interested in Jules Revell, having quite 
forgotten that strange minute of oppression when first 
they met. The freemasonry of youth had already set 
them apart from Mr Revell. She felt he was her equal, 
not to be studied like the old man, not to be humoured 
like Little Gus. 

For the first time for three years she looked forward 
eagerly to the evening hours. There would be no chess — 
never was a game more unsuited toEuphros5me’s tempera- 
ment — and no dictation. But quickly on the heels of 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


76 

these thoughts came a pang of self-reproach. What 
greater pleasure could she know than serving her dear, 
dear guardian? 

“You love playing at chess, and you love reading out 
loud, of course you do! ” she said severely to her own re- 
flection in the little looking-glass on her chest of drawers, 
but the reflection only laughed at her. 

What a captivating reflection it was ! But Phosie did 
not admire it half so much as most girls admire the 
wonderful beings they are so fond of studying in the glass. 
She would rather have resembled her friend, Lily Parlow, 
with her flaxen ringlets and face like an expensive wax 
doll. 

The dinner passed off very pleasantly. Jules Revell, 
who treated his uncle with affectionate intimacy, told a 
great many stories about himself, gave them his opinion 
of London with such ingenuous frankness that even Mr 
Revell forgave his ignorance, and rarely turned those 
liquid, big brown eyes of his away from Phosie’s face. 

She saw how he stared at her, but while many girls 
would have been embarrassed, or even annoyed, she was 
only moved to curiosity. 

Why did he look at her like that? She had never seen 
such an expression in a man’s face. It puzzled her. It 
checked her gaiety. It was so intense, so brilliant, it 
asked her a perpetual question she could not understand. 

After dinner, to his uncle’s great satisfaction, Jules at 
once reminded Mr Revell of his promise to show him the 
collection. 

Phosie ran upstairs first to light the gas, glad to get 
away for a minute. 

She threw open a staircase window and leaned out. 
She was flushed and a little excited. The wind on her 
face was as refreshing as a dash of cold water. 

Mr Revell lingered behind to speak to Mrs Bird. He 
wanted to thank her, in his courteous, old-fashioned way, 
for her special efforts with dinner. 


JULES 


77 

Jules, slipping out of the room behind him, followed the 
girl. 

He knew he was behaving like a fool. He knew he was 
taking risks. She did not hear his quick step on the 
stairs, but suddenly found him leaning out of the window 
beside her, and suddenly felt his arm round her neck. 

It’s a fine night, isn’t it? Are you looking at the 
stars? ” she heard his voice whisper at the same instant. 

Phosie put up her hand and caught his fingers, throw- 
ing him off, not with violence, but with the decision of 
instinct. 

He took a step back. They looked at each other 
blankly. 

The colour slowly crept into his face. 

For an instant he looked mean, and cringing, and 
afraid — but only for an instant — then he had seized upon 
her hand, raised it to his lips, and begged her pardon. 
Almost before she had caught the meaning of the words 
he was speaking gaily to Mr ReveU as he came upstairs. 

Phosie drew her hand through her guardian’s arm and 
pressed close to him. 

He smiled down at her absently and kindly, laying his 
other hand on Jules’s shoulder, as they looked at his 
precious pottery. 


CHAPTER X 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 

M ISS SAPIO was at home, very much at home, in 
her little house in Regent’s Park. 

Her drawing-room was heavy with the mingled odours 
of coffee, tobacco, scent and flowers. A log fire burned 
on the blue-tiled hearth, although it was a fairly warm 
day in mid-September. Miss Sapio’s liver-and-white 
spaniel, getting very, very old, was curled into a quiver- 
ing, sleek ball in front, with his eyes fixed on the genial 
glow. 

Miss Sapio herself reclined in a low chair, a cigarette 
between her fingers, with her tawny hair gathered into a 
great knot at the back of her head, adorned with a tur- 
quoise comb. 

Her big, but still beautiful figure was shown to advan- 
tage in a clinging dress of flame-coloured silk, a very ex- 
travagant dress, slightly soiled, just as her showy tea- 
gowns used to be in the old days in Airy Street. There 
were several bead necklaces round her neck, gold bangles 
on both arms, and her fingers were covered with rings. 

She was the only woman in the room, but there were 
five men, all sitting very close together, as the space was 
so limited, and all accustomed, for Miss Sapio’s visitors 
usually stayed a long time, to the bad air. 

Miss Sapio was making a success of her life ; she was 
rich ; she was popular ; she was acting the leading part in 
a play which was only in the fourth week of a run which 
was to prove a record at a West End theatre. 

The fortunate author of this play was among her guests. 
78 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 79 

He was a quiet, thin young man with shrewd, small 
features, and a high, bumpy forehead which gave his face 
a peculiar look of disproportion, as if the top of his head 
ought to have belonged to somebody else. 

Miss Sapio had once said to him, when a slight dis- 
agreement about a scene in his play had degenerated into 
a quarrel, that there was only one head in England more 
ridiculous than his, and that was Beachy Head. Their 
quarrels, however, were of the past. They now called 
each other “ Dear,” and had become the most sincere 
friends, for Miss Sapio was capable of true, disinterested 
friendship, and a singularly keen, discriminating brain 
was at work behind the playwright’s ugly brows. 

Yet another of her guests was a fellow-worker of the 
hostess’s. This was a popular actor of boys’ parts — stage 
boys of any age between seventeen and twenty-seven — 
who looked like a mere youth, being very slight and deli- 
cate in build, with well-cut, uninteresting features, and 
a high, musical voice. As a matter of fact he had to 
look behind him to catch a glimpse of the thirties, and was 
a married man with sons who were as big, and nearly as 
old in appearance, as himself. 

Sitting next to the actor was a middle-aged artist, who 
was making his first call, and was too obviously interested 
and amused in his surroundings to trouble to talk; nor 
was he the only silent member of the party, for a much 
younger man was lying at full length, half asleep, on a sofa 
which reached from the heavily-curtained little window 
at one end of the room to the heavily-curtained little door 
at the other. 

Miss Sapio did not resent the lazy familiarity of his 
pose and manner. He happened to be a very handsome 
young man, and she admired him whatever he did, or left 
undone. 

The discordant note in the harmony of the afternoon 
was occasionally struck by an old, retired professional 
friend of the hostess, who was also drowsy in the heat of 


8o 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


the room. His stage name was Quizzical Quilter, and he 
had been particularly successful in the almost extinct 
branch of dramatic art which was graced by the great 
Grimaldi. 

She tolerated him for the sake of old times, although 
she had confided to the experienced ears of the actor and 
the playwright, when he made his appearance, her fear 
that “ Quizzy was a little bit ‘ on.’ ” Fortunately he 
was not a great talker, and his occasional remarks were 
very cheery, if not appropriate to the conversation. 

“ The pursuit of mirth ! I don’t quite know what you 
mean by pursuing mirth,” said the pla5rwright, repeating 
a phrase used by the actor. “ Mustn’t one pursue the 
cause of mirth, for the thing itself is only an effect? ” 

” I wish you didn’t analyse everything I say, Hughie,” 
answered his friend. ” I only wanted to point out that 
mirth, or happiness, or delight, whatever you call it, was 
far more worth pursuing than wealth, or fame, or even 
power.” 

” It’s more intangible,” said the playwright. “ And 
more easily lost.” 

” Oh, rot! ” exclaimed Miss Sapio. bending forward to 
flick the ash off her cigarette on to the hearth. “ It’s just 
as easy to hang on to jollity and pleasure as to anything 
else. Where should I be, I should like to know, if I 
always moped? ” 

” What’s that got to do with it, Florence? ” asked the 
playwright, patiently. 

” If my brother Jack were here,” continued Miss Sapio^ 
ignoring the question, “ he’d make you boys understand 
the meaning of mirth. When a man’s been living in the 
West Indies, and had yellow fever scores of times, he 
appreciates the mirth of London. He doesn’t talk about 
being merry — ^he is merry.” 

You’re getting more and more inconsequent and em- 
phatic every day, dear,” observed the playwright, who 
was weary at times of his friend’s brother Jack. 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 8i 


Miss Sapio had raised her voice, which aroused the old 
clown in the comer. 

“ Quite right, Flo! God bless my soul, yes! Give it 
*em, Flo! ” he exclaimed, and slept again. 

The other men laughed, and the artist put in a word. 

I have been pursuing mirth all my life, but the chase 
is only amusing when one is unconscious of it. Don’t 
you think so, Walter? ” 

He turned to the young man on the lounge, who started 
and pulled himself into a sitting posture, stretching out 
his long legs across the hearth. 

“I beg your pardon!” he said in a yawn. “I’m 
afraid I’ve been asleep, but that’s no reflection on your 
interesting conversation. I went to bed so very early 
yesterday.” 

“ That’s a strange reason for being sleepy to-day,” said 
the artist. 

“ I think you misunderstand me,” rejoined the other. 
“ When I said I went to bed so very early yesterday, I 
really meant at about three o’clock this morning. But 
you always talk about going to bed yesterday when once 
you are up, don’t you ? But that is not my only excuse 
for being sleepy. I’m generally sleepy.” 

“ You’re like the Fat Boy, Walter, but you’re not fat,” 
said the playwright. 

“ Exactly. Why, I remember sleeping all through 
The Belle of New York some years ago, and I was sitting 
near to the big drum too. You know how frightfully 
noisy these American pieces are.” 

“ Even more noisy than our interesting conversation,” 
remarked his friend. 

“What were you talking about?” asked the other, 
stirring up the spaniel with his foot. 

“ The pursuit of mirth! ” replied the actor. He liked 
his phrase. 

“Mirth!” repeated the lazy young man, with his 
shoulders drooping and his hands clasped between his 
6 


82 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


knees. ” Do you know, I think that is one of the pretti- 
est words. It always expresses to me something so much 
more delicate than gaiety, and so much more refined 
than pleasure, but it’s so evanescent. That’s the devil 
of it. It’s like everything else worth having — it doesn’t 
last.” 

“Good heavens! Mirth means laughter, and who 
wants to laugh for months at a stretch? ” asked the play- 
wright. 

“ Three hours is enough, isn’t it, Hughie? ” said Walter 
Race, smiling at the man of success. 

He stood erect, stretching his arms over his head. Miss 
Sapio put up her hands. 

“ Give me a pull up, Wally, there’s a dear boy! she 
said. 

Instead of taking her hands he stooped and playfully 
lifted her on to her feet. 

“ I say, Flo, you’re a woman of weight in the land! ” 
he said, impudently, his arms stiU round her waist. 

Miss Sapio laughed, her face on a level with his, bend- 
ing forward. He looked at her coolly, no longer impu- 
dently, and there was no response to her challenging 
smile in his moody eyes. She put up a finger and drew it 
down one side of his face. 

“ I wish you hadn’t lost the mark of the chin-strap, 
Wally! ” she said. 

“ Thank God, I have! ” he exclaimed, thrusting his 
hands into his pockets. “ I want to forget all that 
muddle in South Africa. It isn’t a cheerful recollection. 
You know, my dear girl, it’s over a year since I got home. 
The mark of the chin-strap was always your imagination. 
You’re thinking of last summer, when I got tanned on 
the river.” 

“Oh, Wally! Wally! If I were only eighteen I’d 
marry you! ” exclaimed Miss Sapio. 

“ Well, if you don’t mind about the added seven years, 
I’m sure I don’t! ” said Walter. 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 83 

That makes me twenty-five! ” cried Miss Sapio, and 
she gave him a blow in the chest. “ You flatterer! ” 

“ When are you going to have me to dinner? ” he asked, 
laughing. 

Any day you like to come, Wally. Why not stop 
now? ” said Miss Sapio. 

He puckered his brows. 

“ So sorry, but I have an engagement to-night, Flo, to 
meet one of my aunts and half a dozen cousins and take 
them to a concert.” 

” Poor old boy! ” she exclaimed. “ To-morrow? ” 

“If I possibly can! I’ll send you a wire in the 
morning.” 

He shook hands very cordially with the other men, in- 
cluding the old comedian in the corner, who wrung his 
hand with as much affection as if Walter had been a long- 
lost son. 

“God bless you, my dear boy!” he said. “Now, 
take care of yourself for your poor old mother’s 
sake.” 

A mental vision of his mother — a particularly frigid, 
hook-nosed lady in a Valenciennes lace cap — presented 
itself to Walter’s mind. He laughed about it as he went 
downstairs, accompanied by the artist. They groped 
their way through the dark, narrow hall, filled with 
vapours from the kitchen, where Miss Sapio’s early 
dinner was in preparation, and so out into the street. 

Walter gave a great sigh of relief as he banged the door 
behind them. 

“ Thank God ! ” he said. “ I feel as if I’d been cooked 
along with Flo’s roast mutton.” 

“ Which way are you going? ” asked his friend, 

Walter looked up and down the street, and shrugged 
his shoulders. 

“ Your way — I don’t care — suppose we cut across the 
Park to York Gate? We shall get a little pure air into 
our lungs. 


84 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“Right!” agreed the artist. “What time do you 
have to meet your aunt and cousins? ” 

Walter was puzzled for a second. 

“Meet my aunt and cousins?” he repeated; then, 
with a flash of remembrance and a laugh — “ Oh, that was 
a lie. I didn’t want to stop any longer. I’d had enough 
of Miss Sapio and that nice, inebriated old gentleman.” 

The artist, who was a big, burly man, slow of speech, 
gave him a thoughtful, curious side glance. 

There was a certain fine severity in Walter Race’s face 
seen in profile. It was a compact, clearly-cut profile, 
no indecision about it ; the eye was wide, the modelling 
of the jaw delicate, but not without power, the lines of 
the mouth somewhat hard, the lips being too closely 
pressed together. It was only when he looked one full 
in the face and smiled that Walter gave any impression 
of gentleness, or even warmth of disposition. 

His usual expression was not attractive ; it was bored, 
dissatisfied, lacking the quick, responsive charm of youth 
and high spirits. He was physically fit, after the manner 
of his class and age, but his fine health and perfect mus- 
cular development seemed to be more the result of acci- 
dent — the mere inheritance of the carefully-nurtured, 
weU-schooled and well-fed from generation to generation 
— than the outcome of individual effort. 

For all his height, his handsome features, his good 
bearing, there was only the empty sheath of a man — 
latent possibilities, untouched depths, wasted force. 

“ I can’t understand you, Walter,” said the artist. 
“ Why on earth do you go so often to see Miss Sapio? 
Why do you flirt with her? You don’t care a brass 
farthing about the woman.” 

No, not a brass farthing! ” said Race. “ But I’ve 
got into the habit of lounging round to her place, for I 
like Hughie and he’s usually there. Besides, you must 
confess that Flo is a good fellow. Most women are so 
absurdly exacting.” 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 85 

How lazy you are! ” exclaimed the artist. 

“ Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I be? ” asked the 
other. “ What is the use of energy unless you’ve got 
your living to earn? You see you’re more lucky than I 
am, Wainwright. You’re obliged to bustle about and get 
your little pictures sold, or the poor little Wainwrights 
would starve and haunt your dreams like the children of 
Macduff.” 

“ You don’t even go in for sport,” said his 
friend. 

“ I didn’t mind ski-ing in Norway last year,” said Race. 

And I shouldn’t object to motoring, if I could afford a 
good car, but I’ve never enjoyed shooting or fishing, 
though I’m not half a bad shot. There’s something 
sickening about sport. My brothers think I’m an awful 
ass.” 

“ What a pity you’ve got so much money,” said his 
friend. 

“ Now, there I don’t agree with you,” said Walter, 
looking at Wainwright with a pleasant smile. ” I have 
just the wrong amount, enough to keep me in idleness, 
but not enough to satisfy my desires. I am in no better 
position than I was before my father died. I don’t spend 
any more or any less, and I’ve lost the stimulus of prob- 
able disinheritance.” 

” You were just as lazy in the old days,” said Wain- 
wright, with a laugh. “ You were not the oldest son, 
were you? ” 

“ Oh, no, John is the oldest. I don’t think you know 
my brother John? He is one of the funniest men I’ve 
ever seen — ^unconsciously funny, of course — but they take 
him very seriously down at our place in Suffolk. He was 
always fond of playing games, if only all the rest of us 
would do as we were told, and if we didn’t he twisted our 
arms or thrashed us. Since then he has ‘ enlarged his 
sphere of influence ’ — that’s one of John’s favourite 
phrases — which means that he plays at being Lord of 


86 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


the Manor and Justice of the Peace, administering arm- 
twistings and thrashings on a larger scale.” 

” You’re very severe,” observed Wainwright. 

” Then there’s Leo,” continued Race; ” I’m afraid I 
don’t like Leo. He’s a difficult brute, but since we got 
him married to an heiress, a little dove of a girl of nine- 
teen, I must confess that he’s run pretty straight — for 
him. Edmund is next to me. Dear old Teddy ! He was 
always considered the fool of the family, so my mother 
came to the conclusion that he was ‘ destined for the 
Church’ — John inherits his pompous phrases from my 
mother — ^but unfortunately he never managed to pass 
an exam. Other people would have given it up, but my 
mother is a clever woman, and luckily the bishop of our 
diocese is one of her oldest friends. One can never quite 
explain how these little things are managed, but the fact 
remains that Edmund has been a piUar of the Church for 
several years. There’s a back door to every edifice, you 
know.” 

” Then you are the youngest brother? ” said Wain- 
wright. 

“No! Crowds of us, aren’t there? I come after 
Edmund, and Frank is the youngest. He is our black 
sheep. Having made himself the hero of a village 
scandal before he was twenty, Frank was packed off to 
the other side of the world, not so much as a punishment, 
but because he expressed a ridiculous desire to undo the 
mischief he had done. There was good stuff in Frank. 
I haven’t seen him for four years, but I know he’ll turn up 
some day. An edifying list of brothers, isn’t it? But 
you must remember the strong point in our favour — 
we’re of such good family! ” 

He laughed. Wainwright was silent for a few minutes, 
then he suddenly laid his hand on Race’s arm. 

“ I wish I could make you see the world with different 
eyes, Walter! ” he said. “ Your outlook is so bitter and 
one-sided. I’m not speaking as regards your brothers,” 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 87 

he went on quickly, as Race was about to interrupt, 
“ but of your whole life. How long have I known you — 
three years? — and I’ve never seen you really happy, ex- 
cept for the few weeks before you went out to the South 
African war. Can’t you find something to do? Travel 
— ^study — go in for politics — reforms — Good God! 
There’s enough work to be done in the world. Why don’t 
you take up a profession? Why don’t you get married? 
Wake up, Walter! You’re sick of living on pleasure. 
No man should only spend while others only tod.” 

Wainwright’s face flushed and his strong fingers gripped 
on his friend’s arm, but the smile with which Walter 
turned on him, the amused, light contempt in his hand- 
some face, made him suddenly ridiculous in his own eyes. 
The young man’s expression belittled his friend’s earnest- 
ness, and made him ashamed of the affectionate outburst. 

“ Here endeth the first lesson ! ” said Race. “ But 
you misjudge me, Wainwright, for I am not at all sick of 
living on pleasure. I pursue it all the time — the pursuit 
of mirth, as Hughie said this afternoon. Something to 
live for and nothing to do ! That’s the ideal state of ex- 
istence for rotters like myself, without any particular 
training or shining talents. I have nothing to do,” he 
went on, with a change from bitterness to cheerful in- 
difference, “ and I hope some day to get something to 
live for. Then, my dear Wainwright, I shall be more 
worthy of your friendship.” 

They turned out of the Park into the main road, leav- 
ing the September beauty of burnished leaves and 
autumn flowers for the dust and traffic of the streets. 
Race once more gave a sigh of relief. He did not trouble 
to suppress the recurrent thought that dear old Wain- 
wright was rather boring. 

“ I think I’ll take a hansom, old man,” he said. '' I’m 
rather in a hurry to get home.” 

Are you afraid your aunt and cousins will be growing 
impatient, Walter? ” said Wainwright, smiling. 


88 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“No, no, really I have an appointment! ” protested 
Race, lifting his finger to a cabman on the lookout for a 
fare. “ Good-bye, old man ! My love to Mrs Wain- 
wright and the kiddies. Look me up soon, won’t 
you? ” 

When he was alone in the cab Walter Race folded his 
arms on the doors — it was his usual position in a hansom 
— ^while his eyes wandered listlessly over the perpetually 
forming and perpetually broken puzzle of the busy streets. 
He had no appointment, as his friend had suspected, and 
he was debating in his mind whether he would dine at his 
club or at one of the many houses where he had standing 
invitations. 

He was depressed, partly because it was his habit to be 
depressed, and partly at the anticipation of a long-delayed 
visit to his oldest brother, for which he was to leave town 
in a couple of days. 

Race was essentially a London man, but the beginning 
and end of his London was the West End. The pleasures 
of the city alone appealed to him ; he cared little for the 
struggle and stress of its daily labour, and, although he 
was naturally generous, his heart had long been hardened 
to the sight of poverty. 

It is wonderful how the occasional giving of a small 
silver coin to a beggar will salve the conscience of the man 
with full pockets. 

As the cab crossed Oxford Street on its way to Picca- 
dilly — Walter Race’s chambers were in Plantagenet 
Court, Savoy — there was a sudden block in the traffic. 
His driver pulled up sharply close to the curb. 

Walter, who was observant with all his laziness, looked 
at a little group of people who were as suddenly checked 
as he himself in their aimless, or perhaps necessary, 
hurry. 

A girl had stepped back on to the pavement from the 
road, the wheel of his cab brushing her skirts. She 
laughed at the narrow shave. Walter heard the laugh — 


THE PURSUIT OF MIRTH 89 

not loud, but clear, gurgling, unaffected, prolonged — as 
expressive as a happy phrase of mirthful music. 

He bent forward, his arms still folded on the doors, to 
look at her. Their eyes met. She was standing between 
two men, one of whom, a tall, elderly gentleman in gold 
spectacles, clutched nervously at her arm, while the other, 
a swarthy, thick-set fellow, who showed a gleam of white 
teeth between full smiling lips, apparently shared her 
childish amusement. 

The girl looked at Walter, eyes on eyes, and saw that 
he too shared her mirth. There was the instant response 
in his quick movement towards her and the change in his 
expression. 

The colour leapt like a flame into her cheeks. She 
tried, tried with all her might, to be serious. In vain. 
The rebellious lips, the sparkling eyes were beyond her 
control. For that one long second she was brilliant, 
wonderful, quickening his dull pulse with her flash of re- 
cognition and innocent delight at his admiration. 

It was too exquisite, too absurd to last ! He was glad 
when the hansom jerked forward and left her behind, 
feeling she would have disappointed him at a second 
glance; but the lilt of her laughter echoed in his brain. 
He could not forget it. It made him laugh too — all by 
himself — in his rooms that night. 

That was how they met and parted, for the first time 
Walter Race and Euphrosyne. 


CHAPTER XI 


HOW JULES BURNT THE PHOTOGRAPHS 

J ULES REVELL had long since made his peace with 
Euphrosyne. She forgave him readily enough, for 
no feeling of personal anger ever stayed in her mind, 
and when she found that he kept his promise by 
never repeating the indiscretion of the first night of his 
arrival she dismissed the incident from her mind. 

Jules was no fool and possessed the quality, rare in a 
man of his type, of patience. He was self-controlled up 
to a certain point, but when that point was reached — to 
give the devil his due it did not often happen — he was 
emotional and violent, easily turned to good or evil — 
unnerved, another man. 

He had unbounded belief in the ultimate attainment 
of any desire on which he really set his heart, and the 
manner of his self -blame, at occasional failure, only added 
to his colossal conceit. 

“ If I had worked harder or been more cunning I 
should have won! ” he always said to himself. “ When 
I exert the whole strength of my will it is irresistible.” 

His uncle liked him, for there was a touch of sincerity, 
if only a touch, in his enthusiasm over the subjects that 
solely interested Mr Revell, and it enabled him to play 
the part of modern ignorance, taking first lessons in 
antique learning, very convincingly. 

Mrs Bird liked him, for if his jokes and stories lacked 
quality they had quantity to recommend them, and 
Jules made it a rule to be agreeable to every woman he 
came across. 


90 


THE PHOTOGRAPHS 


91 

His secret attitude towards women, although he would 
never have confessed it, was one of contemptuous pity, 
mingled with never-satisfied curiosity. 

Euphrosyne liked him, although she found, as at their 
first meeting, something oppressive in his strength and 
capability. 

He was reticent about his home life, but apparently 
devoted to his Canadian mother, to whom he wrote every 
week, and inclined to disparage, when Mr Revell was not 
present, the English tastes and traits of his father. Jules 
judged all men by their physical strength, and his father 
was something of a weakling. 

He was kind to Little Gus, who was too young and 
feeble in muscles to be worth considering as a man at all. 
Besides, he understood Phosie’s affection for the boy, and 
never mistook it for more than friendship. He was 
troubled by no fine shades of jealousy. It was Phosie’s 
love he was beginning to crave — ^love like his own, 
passionate and absorbing — not to share in her thoughts 
and fancies. Of course he admitted that they added to 
her charm, but her prettiness would have been none the 
less if she had been a stupid, unimaginative girl, Jules 
argued, and it was her beauty alone which attracted him. 

He was a great talker, and quite unwittingly his new 
friends, Mr Revell, Phosie and Gus, spoilt him. The 
society of men of his own age, more especially of his own 
fighting weight, would have held his boastfulness in check. 

Many of the stories of his own business successes were 
true. He was not reticent on his business affairs. At 
fifteen he had made up his mind not to go to school any 
longer, laughing at his father’s arguments in favour of a 
college education, although he knew that the idea of his 
son graduating from one of the Canadian or American 
universities, Oxford or Cambridge being beyond his 
means, was a long-cherished dream of the exiled English- 
man. 

Jules’s first employment had been in a store, but he soon 


92 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


quarrelled with his master, owing to the latter’s not un- 
natural objection to pertinent and impertinent criticism 
of his business methods. Then he worked in a soap 
factory for a few months, followed by a long period “ on 
the road,” as a commercial traveller, when he had the 
doubtful reputation of being known as “ the coolest liar 
who ever slung dry goods.” 

His next venture was in partnership with a sharp 
American, with whom he drifted into the States, exploit- 
ing worthless articles in the shape of toilet accessories 
and patent medicines. This was a period of his career 
of which Jules rarely spoke, although, when the partner- 
ship was dissolved, he returned to his native town a 
fairly rich man. He was still under thirty, which perhaps 
accounts for the fact that he became stage-struck and 
toured an entertainment company of his own trium- 
phantly through Ontario and the Lower Provinces of 
Canada. 

It was with the profits from this tour, and what was 
left of his partnership money, that he was able to go to 
Europe for a holiday. 

Phosie was greatly interested in the adventures of his 
little company. It was the only part of his life that 
really interested her, for she never forgot that her dear 
father had spent his boyhood in travelling companies. 

Jules was easily persuaded to give her real and im- 
aginary details. 

One day, a couple of months after his first appearance 
at the quiet house in The Stroll, he found Euphrosyne 
alone. Mr Revell was at the Museum, and Little Gus 
had accompanied Mrs Bird to the ancestral halls of the 
Bird family in Peckham. 

” Taking care of the house? ” he asked, hanging up his 
soft felt hat and overcoat. 

Then he turned and faced her, with his hands on his 
hips, his tremendous chest extended to its full breadth, 
and his fresh-coloured face glowing. 


THE PHOTOGRAPHS 


93 

“ A new suit, Phosie! ” he said. “ What do you think 
of it? All right, eh? ” 

It was soft, rough grey serge, loose, but so well cut that 
it seemed to add to his height while lessening the thick- 
ness of his too heavily built frame. Phosie laid her first 
fingers lightly on his shoulders, and he let her twist him 
round. 

“ Millionairish ! ” she exclaimed. It suits us to per- 
fection. We always think ourselves very good-looking, 
but now we are simply irresistible! ” 

“No bluff, Phosie!” he protested, laughing. “Do 
you like it, straight? Does the shade suit me? ” 

“ Do you mean your complexion? ” asked Phosie, pre- 
tending to be very serious. 

“ Of course not! What does a man want with a com- 
plexion ? Does it suit me as a whole ? It doesn’t make 
me look narrow-chested, does it? ” 

“ That question is a little too transparent, my dear 
Jules ! ” she said. “ Pm not going to pay you any com- 
pliments on your ‘ chest expansion,’ or whatever you call 
it. When you puff yourself out like that you only look 
like a huge robin redbreast.” 

“ Is that all you’ve got to say about it? ” asked Jules. 

“About the new suit? At present that’s all. After 
I’ve recovered from the f^rst dazzling effect I may be able 
to go into details,” said Phosie. 

“ Well, I’m glad you like it,” and he turned again to 
the hat-rack to take a packet of photographs out of his 
overcoat pocket. “ Where are you sitting? ” 

“ Downstairs. We never have a fire in the other 
rooms, you know.” 

She led the way into the darkness of the basement, and, 
kneeling down in front of the breakfast-room fire, stirred 
it into a blaze. Jules threw himself into Mr Revell’s 
arm-chair, watching her. She stooped to look under the 
bars, her braid of thick hair falling over one shoulder and 
her face flushed in the heat. 


94 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ How old are you, Phosie? ” asked the young man, 
suddenly. 

“ The first bloom of youth is over! I shall never see 
seventeen again ! ” she answered, with a dramatic flourish 
of the tongs. Then she went on putting little tempting 
pieces of coal where the flames would catch them. 

“ What a shame it is ! ” said Jules, after a pause. 

Phosie sat back on her heels, tongs in hand. 

“ What’s a shame, Jules? ” 

“ That you should be kept in prison.” 

“ Whatever do you mean? ” 

He didn’t answer for a minute, but took up an open 
book Phosie had been reading, glanced down the page 
curiously, looked at the title, and then threw it roughly 
on to the table. 

“ Macaulay's Essays / ” he exclaimed contemptu- 
ously. “ My word I What a shame ! If my uncle enjoys 
being a fossil himself I don’t see why he should try to 
fossilize a girl of eighteen. I think you live an awful life, 
Phosie, no pleasures, no friends, no change. You don’t 
know what it is to be alive. You’re treated like a child. 
Why, there are dozens of girls at your age who have 
already — ” 

He stopped abruptly and changed the sentence. 

“ You can’t be content. It’s impossible. I know my 
uncle’s awfully good and all that sort of thing, but his 
time is over. He’s forgotten his youth. He’s like a 
dried old stick, with no sap in it. But you and I are both 
young. Everything is before us — everything worth 
having.” 

He bent forward eagerly, and Phosie still sat on her 
heels, smiling, and playing with the tongs. Her ex- 
pression of amused interest at first excited, and then ex- 
asperated, her companion. 

” What’s the good of books and old crockery when 
you’re eighteen? ” he went on. '' What’s the good of 
living in a museum? The kind of life you lead is for old 


THE PHOTOGRAPHS 


95 


men and worn-out women. Don’t you realise that 
nothing matters — nothing really interests us in the world 
— but our personal joys and experiences? Reading’s no 
good — talking’s no good — it’s life, it’s action, it’s love 
that matters.” 

He seized her hand and made an effort to draw her to- 
wards him, but Phosie instantly pulled herself away and 
rose to her feet. 

” I will not let you hold my hand! I hate it. I hate 
to be touched! Will you ever understand that? ” she 
said firmly and emphatically, with no air of offended 
dignity, but with unmistakable determination. 

” V^y are you so cruel and so absurd? ” asked Jules, 
but he did not attempt to disobey her. 

Her momentary seriousness was gone. She hung up 
the tongs on their little nail and sat down at the table. 

” Now, Jules, you’ve been talking nonsense,” she said, 
” and I don’t want to hear any more of it. Where are 
the photographs you promised to show me? ” 

” I never met a girl like you! ” he exclaimed. “You 
look so soft and gentle, but you’re really a bit of flint. 
You hurt me a dozen times a week, and I — and I — ” 

He sprang up, and, throwing himself down beside her, 
tried to capture her hand again, saying all sorts of in- 
coherent, passionate words. Not wholly sincere, or 
wholly playing a part, he knew the effect of mingled 
violence and tenderness on most women, and expected 
anything rather than what occurred. 

If Phosie had been angry, or frightened, or even thrown 
herself recklessly into his arms, he would not have been 
so much surprised. But she suddenly laid both hands 
on his shoulders and gave him a smart, strong push. He 
was on one knee and the attack was unexpected. He 
swayed for a second, caught at the table to regain his 
balance, failed in the attempt, and rolled over sideways 
on to the floor. 

It was not at all dignified and Phosie jumped up with a 


96 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


shriek of laughter. Jules had bumped his head against 
the leg of the table. It was irritating and painful, and he 
looked, as he felt, very ridiculous. He picked himself up 
with a poor attempt to join in her amusement. 

“ If you were a boy, you imp — ! ” he said threaten- 
ingly. “ As it is. I’ve got half a mind to punish you.” 

“ Come now, show me the photographs ! ” said Phosie, 
with a stamp of her foot. “ You’ll never please me by 
making yourself so stupid. I’m not at all impressed 
when you talk about your heart and adoration. I don’t 
believe a word you say. I don’t like you when you rave, 
and I’m not in the least afraid of you.” 

Jules did not answer. Her light indifference baffled 
him, but an ugly expression i)assed over his face. He 
shrugged his heavy shoulders and picked up the packet 
of photographs. There was something of the surly dog 
in his disposition, and Phosie’s coolness was the whip he 
feared. 

The photographs of his company were neatly encased 
in long strips of red cloth. It was not quite such a large 
company as she had expected from his description. 

The leading man looked very old, in spite of a curly 
wig and dyed moustache. He was an English actor, 
Jules explained, and had played with Fechter and the 
Keans. 

” I should think he might have acted with David 
Garrick by the look of him! ” observed Phosie. 

” Very likely,” agreed Jules, who was vague about 
dates. 

This old gentleman had recited, stage managed, and 
acted titled fathers or faithful old servants in dramatic 
sketches. A second man, who was photographed in a 
swallow-tailed coat and grey trousers, had played the 
piano, sung comic songs, and given what was described 
on the programme as ” a screamingly funny, strictly re- 
fined ventriloquial act.” 

One other man and a lady had completed the company. 


THE PHOTOGRAPHS 


97 


These were the photographs which principally inter- 
ested Phosie. She knitted her brows over the portrait 
of the young man. His face seemed familiar. Where 
had she seen him before? Jules marked her expression. 

“ Think he’s a good-looking boy? ” he asked, instantly 
jealous of her interest. 

“ I seem to remember his face,” she answered, in a 
puzzled voice. “ But I can’t have seen it before. What 
was his name? ” 

He was an Englishman,” said Jules, turning a fold of 
the red cloth to hide the photograph from her fixed gaze. 
“ He had a good voice and I got him dirt cheap, but he 
put on ‘ side,’ and we had a row. I was obliged to give 
him a licking.” 

” Not an easy thing to do, I should think,” said Phosie, 
quietly returning the case to look at the Englishman 
again. ” What was his name? ” 

It was the second time she had asked the question. 
Jules had ignored it before. 

” He called himself Frank Race — a fool name — per- 
haps it was a lie. What do you think of the girl? ” he 
answered, brusquely. 

Phosie was bending over the photographs with her 
elbows on the table. She answered without looking up, 
studying the face of the* lady of the company. It was a 
thin, delicate face with rather a big mouth, slightly open, 
hair elaborately curled all over her head, and big, pathetic 
eyes. 

” She looks very fragile with her tiny neck and pointed 
chin,” she answered. “ Of course she’s pretty, very 
pretty, but there’s something so sad about her face. 
Was she in bad health or unhappy? What a tragic little 
person! ” 

She looked at Jules with a pit5dng expression, un- 
usually serious for Phosie. 

” Does it strike you like that? ” he asked, carelessly 
rising from his chair and going to the fire. 

7 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


98 

He split a piece of coal with a smart blow of his heel 
and stood looking down into the sudden flame, with his 
back towards Phosie and his hands on the mantelpiece. 
She could not see the expression of his face and did not 
notice that his hands, at first placed lightly on the edge 
of the marble, gripped it with so much tension as he went 
on speaking that his knuckles looked as if they would 
break through the skin. 

“ She was not a very strong girl,” he said, after a 
minute. “ In fact, she was consumptive. I’ve never 
seen a prettier little actress, although she was absolutely 
without training. But she broke up — quickly. She is 
dead.” 

”Oh, Jules!” 

Phosie was shocked at the bluntness of the words. He 
had spoken in abrupt jerks, and there was silence after 
her exclamation. Phosie felt that the subject was both 
painful and disagreeable to her companion. She looked 
at the pretty, weak face of the girl for a long time. There 
was a certain fascination about it. Then she turned 
again to the young Englishman. Where had she seen 
him before? No ! She had not seen him. That was her 
second thought ; he only reminded her of somebody else. 
It was perplexing and troublesome, not the recollection 
itself, but her failure to make it definite. 

When Jules turned round from the fire he had re- 
covered his self-possession and passed into one of his 
boisterous moods. He took a step up to Phosie and 
pulled away the case of photographs, folded it together, 
and thrust it into his pocket. 

” I’m sick of the darned old pictures! ” he said in his 
rough way. ” I wish I hadn’t shown them to you.” 

” I wish you wouldn’t snatch things ! ” retorted the 
girl. ” It’s one of your bad habits, Mr Revell. I want 
to see them again, please.” 

Oh, no, you don’t, Phosie.” 

” Oh, yes, I do, Jules! ” 


THE PHOTOGRAPHS 


99 


He pulled the packet out of his pocket, but did not give 
it to her. Sitting down in the low chair by the fire he un- 
folded the red case and deliberately wrenched out the 
photographs of the Englishman, Frank Race, and the 
fragile girl, tearing the cloth with his thick fingers. 

Phosie looked on in silent amazement. His face, bent 
down over his task, was red and scowling. A big vein 
stood out on his forehead, zigzag between the eyes, and 
he drew in his lips with the set, sulky look of strength 
that always oppressed her with a knowledge of his 
obstinacy and physical force. 

He cracked the stiff cards on which the photographs 
were mounted into four pieces and flung them into the 
fire, catching up the poker to ram them down into the red 
hollow of the coals, muttering some words she could not 
make out between his teeth. 

The whole incident had taken less than three minutes, 
but it left a vivid impression on Euphrosyne’s mind of 
suppressed, imaccountable rage, and brutal violence held 
in check. 

When the bits of cards were fully burnt, but not till 
then, Jules looked round at her, smiling rather feebly, 
the dull red colour in his face, which seemed to culminate 
in the ugly, swollen vein on the forehead, gradually dying 
away. 

He held out his hand to her appealingly, like a school- 
boy, half repentant, half defiant after a fit of ill temper. 

She could not respond. All her sensitive being was 
jarred. The very air of the room seemed stifling to her, 
as if it were charged with lurid red flashes of passion, 
playing round the man whom she had seen so strangely 
moved. 

She was shaken with inward trembling — not fear, but 
the more subtle sensation of unexpected, overwhelming 
repugnance. 

She turned without a word and ran out of the door. 
Jules sprang after her, but he was too late. She had 


lOO 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


reached the room on the first floor and turned the key in 
the lock before he could reach it. 

He heard her laugh within, for Phosie’s moods were as 
swift as the dart of a swallow. She forgot her impulse 
of flight in her Puck-like pleasure at the failure of his pur- 
suit. The more she thought of it, the more she laughed, 
and the more Jules raged. 

In vain he rapped and threatened, implored and scolded 
at the door. She stayed in her fortress, deaf to his en- 
treaties, till Mr Revell came home. 


CHAPTER XII 


PHOSIE AND AN OLD FRIEND 


HE success of Miss Sapio in Hughie’s comedy — the 



i clever young playwright with the peculiar-shaped 
head was named Hewett Addison — steadily increased as 
the weeks passed. 

Hughie lived in his days of triumph as in his days of 
waiting, quietly and modestly. He had many quaint 
ideas for future plays, and he discussed them all with Miss 
Sapio. She was the only person among his numberless 
friends who knew about the odd, laughable crowd of 
brain children, long before they saw the light in Hughie’s 
manuscripts, with which he has peopled the modem stage. 

He talked about his work when they were in Miss 
Sapio's little drawing-room, and as she listened, at first 
with amusement at the young man’s interest in his 
imaginary characters, but soon with greater interest in 
the characters themselves, she began to be influenced by 
the innate delicacy and depths of his nature. 

Euphrosyne had instinctively shrunk away from her 
in the old Airy Street days ; even her beauty as a younger 
woman had been hard and brazen, but in the happiness 
of success, and in the companionship of Addison, she re- 
gained something of the lost bloom of her womanhood. 

It was despicable to lie to Hughie, because, with all his 
cleverness, he never seemed to doubt the truth of her 
foolish stories ; she tried to forget the darker chapters in 
a life of many secret, and even sordid, adventures ; she 
even reached the height of giving up absinthe, and the 
use of bad language. 


102 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Miss Sapio was still a beautiful woman, well into the 
seventh inch over five feet. The playwright, with that 
inscrutable face of his, illuminated by the clear, keen 
vision of the imaginative mind, hardly reached to the 
level of her eyebrows, but Miss Sapio was afraid of 
Hewett — afraid of displeasing him, afraid of losing his 
friendship, afraid of her own unworthiness. 

The knowledge of this would have amused Hewett and 
struck him as Gilbertian, for he had no false illusions 
about his insignificant appearance, and there was not an 
ounce of conceit in his whole composition. He would 
have been even more amused to know that she had per- 
suaded herself that he was good-looking. 

It was when she was walking in Hyde Park, a long 
tramp on a bright December day, that Miss Sapio met 
with Euphrosyne Moore. 

Phosie was alone. Her eyes were on the groimd, for 
she was brooding over Mr Revell, who was ill at home. 
It was the first day for a week she had left the house. 

As she turned down one of the side paths, a few 
minutes’ walk from Marble Arch, to cross the Park in the 
direction of Kensington, her dog made a rush at another 
dog approaching from the opposite direction. 

There was a great deal of barking and scuffling on the 
part of the dogs, accompanied by whistling and commands 
of their owners, before Taffy and his enemy would listen 
to reason. Phosie, seizing her excited Welsh terrier by 
the collar, began to apologise to the mistress of the 
flurried and indignant chow. But the words died away, 
and her first stare of blank amazement changed into a 
flash of pleasure. 

“ Miss Sapio! ” she cried. 

“Good Lord! It’s Eddy Moore’s little kid!” ex- 
claimed the lady. 

Delighted to hear her father’s name, Phosie forgot all 
about the straining Taffy, let him go, and literally threw 
herself into Miss Sapio’s arms. She was lost in an equally 


PHOSIE AND AN OLD FRIEND 103 

effusive embrace — smothered among Miss Sapio’s furs, 
while she was kissed a dozen times in the midst of the 
perfume of violets and the soft fluff against her cheeks of 
a delicately-scented powder. 

“Oh, my stars -and -what -do -you- call - 'ems ! “ ex- 
claimed Miss Sapio, holding the girl at arm’s length and 
then smothering her again. “ How the child hcis grown. 
How well you look ! Upon my word ! Give him to me, 
Hughie, for pity’s sake.’’ 

She clutched her chow out of Mr Addison’s arms while 
Phosie turned her attention once more to the capture of 
her own dog. 

“ This is Euphrosyne, the dearest, merriest little grig 
in the world! ” continued Miss Sapio to Hughie. “ Mr 
Hewett Addison — Miss Moore.” 

Hughie lifted his hat and saw, by her unchanged ex- 
pression, that Miss Moore was not a theatre-goer. She 
had never heard of Mr Hewett Addison. 

“ Where are you going all by yourself? ” asked her old 
friend. “ Do you still live in that pig-sty off Edgware 
Road? ” 

Phosie gave a brief sketch of her life since the time 
they parted. 

They all walked on together, the chow tucked under 
Miss Sapio’s arm, while Taffy strained at the lead. 

“ So your poor dad got himself smashed? ” said Miss 
Sapio. “Poor old fellow! You’d have liked Phosie’s 
father, Hughie, he was the kindest, simplest soul! And 
now you’ve been adopted at the British Museum, have 
you? Well, I hope they treat you properly and let you 
have plenty to eat and drink.” 

Phosie hastened to explain that Mr Revell had given 
her a home in his private capacity, not on behalf of the 
nation. Miss Sapio was under the impression that she 
lodged and boarded at the Museum. 

“ I suppose you’re rich? ” Continued her questioner. 

Phosie laughed. 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


1 04 

“ Oh, no,” she replied. “ Mr Revell gives me a few 
shillings a week, but Fm afraid I don’t save any money. 
You see I have Little Gus to take care of.” 

” Who’s Little Gus? That brute of a dog? ” 

” No, it is a boy. He is my greatest friend. We ran 
away together.” 

“ Eloped! ” cried Miss Sapio in a voice that made the 
people within hearing stare at her. “ Good heavens, 
child! You’re not married? ” 

” No, no! ” answered Phosie. Little Gus is younger 
than I am — ^he’s like a brother. Of course I’m not 
married.” 

” I should hope not! No girl ought to be married at 
your age. I’m sure you agree with me, Hughie? ” 

” I don’t know Miss Moore’s age,” said Addison, smiling 
at her in his friendly way. 

” You gave me quite a turn ! ” said Miss Sapio. ” It's 
made me feel positively faint. I don’t think I can walk 
any farther. Suppose we get a cab, Hughie, and both 
of you come and have a bit of lunch with me? ” 

“ Thank you very much, but I must not be away from 
home for very long,” said Phosie. “ Mr Revell is ill 
and he wiU miss me.” 

” I’ll let you go directly we’ve stuffed,” said Miss 
Sapio. ” Will you come, Hughie? ” 

” M — yes. I’ve nothing better to do just now,” said 
Addison. 

Phosie thought this acceptance of an invitation some- 
what ungracious, till she caught the smile of mutual 
understanding between her friend and the odd-looking, 
grave young man. 

They found the retired comedian, Mr Quizzical Quilter, 
reading a newspaper in Miss Sapio’s tiny drawing-room, 
with a glass of whisky-and-water on the table beside 
him. He had invited himself to lunch, but his hostess, 
after slapping him on the back and observing that she 
liked his cheek, seemed very pleased to have him. She 


PHOSIE AND AN OLD FRIEND 105 

introduced him in an effusive manner to her new 
guest. 

“ This is my dear old pal, Mr Quizzical Quilter, known 
to all the world as Quizzy.” 

The old gentleman, who was quite sober and smartly 
dressed, with a vivid red waistcoat, shook Phosie quite 
affectionately by the hand, giving her a characteristic 
greeting: 

“How de do? God bless you! Many happy re- 
turns!” 

While they were having lunch, which was elegantly 
cooked and served. Miss Sapio questioned Phosie about 
her dancing. 

“ I haven’t forgotten the steps you taught me,” said 
the girl. 

“Think of that!” exclaimed Miss Sapio, turning to 
Addison. “ This little lady has got the most beautiful 
‘ point ’ I’ve ever come across. It’s natural to her. 
You must see her dance.” 

“Oh, Miss Sapio! I csin’t dance properly,” inter- 
rupted Phosie, with flushed cheeks. 

Mr Quizzical Quilter, whose attention hitherto had 
been entirely concentrated on his plate, laid down his 
knife and fork and wagged his head from side to side, 
pulling his mouth square and squinting horribly at 
Phosie. 

“Never say die, my pet!” he exclaimed. “Don’t 
get fluffy! You’re among friends. We’re all goin’ to 
be hung on the same gallers! ” 

Having thus proffered his professional encouragement, 
Quizzy allowed the pupils of his eyes to roll back to their 
proper position and returned to his food pell-mell. 

Miss Sapio, struck with an idea which prevented her 
from noticing the interruption, glanced at Phosie and 
Addison alternately for several minutes without speaking. 

Then she banged the table with her clenched hand. 

“ By Jove, I’ve got it! ” she ejaculated, and the play- 


io6 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


wright looked at her in sudden admiration, for her fine 
eyes flashed with excitement. 

“ What have you got, Flo? ” he asked curiously. 

“ A bright idea, my boy! ” 

“ Is that all? ” said Addison, coolly. “ I've got 
dozens. They flock round me whenever I deign to take 
any notice of them." 

“ But you’re a genius, Hughie," put in his friend. 

“ Tell us the idea," he went on. “ You’ll never get 
another till you’ve worked it out, my dear Florence. 
That’s the way of ideas; a second rarely takes definite 
shape until one has completed a first." 

“You shall write a little pantomime for Phosie and 
I’ll teach her the steps! ’’ said Miss Sapio. “ What do 
you think of it? ’’ 

“Cap-i-tal!" observed Quizzy. The word “panto- 
mime ’’ appealed to him. 

“ What do you mean ? A little story without words ? ’’ 
asked Addison. “ Do you want to drive Miss Moore on 
to the stage? ” 

“ Why not? " said Miss Sapio, warming to her sub- 
ject. “ She is wholly dependent on this old gentleman 
who keeps the British Museum. What would happen 
if he died? Don’t look shocked, child. People do die, 
even the best of them." 

“ Gentleman might hop the twig any minute — ^poor 
old boy! ’’ agreed Quizzy, who was at leisure as he sipped 
his coffee to join in the conversation. 

“ I suppose you want me to invent something suit- 
able for music-halls? ’’ said Addison, looking at Phosie 
with new interest. 

“ Of course I do, dear! " said Miss Sapio. “ There’s 
no opening for anything of that kind in an ordinary 
theatre. Will you try it, Hughie? Does it appeal to 
you? What do you say? ’’ 

“ I think Miss Moore is the one to be consulted first,” 
said Addison. 


PHOSIE AND AN OLD FRIEND 107 

Phosie’s colour had come and gone, but her lips were 
smiling and the old light of adventure shone in her eyes. 

It struck the playwright, for the first time, that she 
was a very captivating little person. He blamed him- 
self for not perceiving when they met in the Park the 
possible charm of her quick changes of expression. 

“ I shall be only too pleased — if I can do anything — 
but I’m so untrained — ^so ignorant — ” She stopped as 
abruptly as she had begun to speak, overcome with 
shyness. 

“Good!” said Miss Sapio, clapping her hands. “I 
knew you were a sensible little soul. We’ll make your 
fortune. How do you think of working out the idea, 
Hughie? ” 

Addison rose with a laugh to open the door. 

“ You must give me time, my dear Flo. I shall have 
to think it over.” 

“ Authors can’t be drove,” observed Quizzy, as he 
followed the ladies upstairs, cigar in hand. “ I know 
the way of authors. I’ve met scores l^f ’em. They’re 
the most annoyin’ lot of men.” 

“Why do you think that?” asked Addison, who 
professed great respect for the old clown’s opinions. 

“They fuss! They grumble! They’re always 
interferin’,” answered Mr Quilter. “ I’ve known 
managers who didn’t dare put a speech into a play — a 
play they’d bought, mind you — without consultin’ the 
author! It’s ridiculous. Authors won’t let you gag. 
They think they know the public better than you do! 
They want to be original. They want to have it all 
their own way, as if it was anything to do with them how 
you act their plays! It’s sickenin’, my boy. If I had 
a theatre I’d never let an author inside the doors. They 
screw a percentage out of your earnings, and what more 
do they want? ” 

The indignant old gentleman re-lighted his cigar and 
puffed great clouds of smoke through his nostrils. 


io8 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

Addison had listened to his outburst with great atten- 
tion. 

“ You’re quite right, Quizzy,” he said. Authors 
ought not to be allowed to see their own plays acted. 
It only makes them conceited or miserable, and in 
either case it gives them a false notion of their own 
importance. But I really think they deserve to be paid. 
After all, Quizzy, they’ve got to buy boots and support 
their families like their superiors.” 

“ Just so! ” agreed Mr Quilter. ” But if you look at 
it from the manager’s point of view, it’s hard lines to 
see so much of his profits goin’ into another man’s 
pockets, isn’t it? The least authors can do is to make 
’emselves agreeable, but they don’t! ” 

” No? ” queried Addison. 

” God bless my soul! I ought to know,” said Quizzy, 
” for I’ve had to do with the whole lot — drama, comedy, 
burlesque, tragedy — ^but I must say they’ve got a little 
more sense when they write panto. There they give 
the actors a free hand, and what’s the result? We cut 
out half the rubbish the author has written and make a 
success. There you are! It’s as plain” — he con- 
cluded, turning to Miss Sapio — “ it’s as plain as the nose 
on your face! I can’t put it more emphatically than 
that — it’s as plain as your nose, my dear.” 

Phosie, who had waited patiently during Quizzy’s 
discourse on authors, now entreated her friend to let 
her go. She was anxious about Mr Revell. 

” I won’t keep you a minute longer, sweetie,” said 
Miss Sapio. ” But you really must do the ‘ point ’ 
once, if you can still manage it, for Mr Addison to see.” 

” Do you mean stand on my toes? ” 

Phosie, blushing again at being the centre of observa- 
tion, lifted her skirt daintily and walked across the room 
on the tips of her toes with the ease and grace of an 
accomplished prima ballerina. 

” Now see if you can dance a bit like that! ” com- 


PHOSIE AND AN OLD FRIEND 109 

manded Miss Sapio, and she whistled a lively tune. 
Mr Quizzical Quilter joined in with snapping fingers. 

Of course Phosie’s attempts to the observant eyes of 
Hewett Addison, who had seen all the dancers worth 
seeing of his generation, at once showed her lack of 
training, but after a few seconds he forgot to look at the 
steps in his admiration of the girl. 

She smiled continually, but it was not the set smile 
of the stage dancer, being absolutely un-self-conscious, 
caused by an inner fancy too delicate for words, while 
her little feet gave Addison the impression of dancing 
on notes, as if they tapped the music out of the ground. 
She possessed the captivation of a child, earnestly doing 
her best, mingled with the light-hearted, irresponsible 
joy of a being imtouched by care and ignorant of 
evil. 

“Dainty! Dainty!” cried Addison, with an en- 
thusiasm which surprised his friends, when Miss Sapio’s 
whistling ended in a breathless pant, and Phosie stopped 
in the middle of a wild and original pirouette, breaking 
the spell she had thrown over the level-headed play- 
wright. 

“ Isn’t she a duck? ” asked Miss Sapio. “ Have you 
ever seen such a * point ’ ? ” 

“ I endorse the sentiment, Flo,” said Quizzy, before 
Addison could reply. “ This young lady is a perfect 
duck — a duck and green peas, my pet, and don’t forget 
the taters ! ” 

He placed his hand on his heart and bowed low to the 
dancer, accompanying his compliment with one of the 
most hideous grimaces of which his india-rubber face 
was capable. Phosie’s eyes twinkled. Mr Quilter 
flattered himself he had made a conquest. 

“ I will try to write a sketch worthy of my subject,” 
said Addison. 

“ How kind you are! ” exclaimed Phosie. 

“ He’s the kindest, best Hughie on earth! ” said Miss 


1 10 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Sapio. “ If he says he’ll do a thing, he always does it. 
Give me your address, dearie, and directly Mr Addison 
has got his idea on paper 111 drop you a line.” 

She sat down at her little writing-table, scattering 
notes and bills on to the floor in a search for her address - 
book. Addison rose and neatly picked it out of a pigeon- 
hole in the desk. 

” Why, there it was all the time! ” said Miss Sapio, 
and tipped the ink-bottle over with her sleeve. 

Addison took up the blotting-book, tore out several 
sheets, and quickly mopped up the black pool. 

“Don’t be so impetuous!” he said. “We have 
eternity before us, my dear Flo.” 

Miss Sapio, who had bitten a foul word off the tip of 
her tongue, compressed her lips and looked up into his 
face as he bent over the desk. 

“I’m sorry, Hughie!” she said in a low, humble 
voice. 

“You ought to be glad that your ink-bottle was nearly 
empty,” he rejoined, and went back to his seat. 

Miss Sapio wrote down Phosie’s address, kissed her 
many times, and said once more they would make her 
fortune. 

Mr Quizzical Quilter bade her a jocular farewell, send- 
ing his love to the old folks at home, and Hewett 
Addison, who took her to the door, watched her from 
the steps until she disappeared. 

He returned in a thoughtful mood to the drawing- 
room. Quizzy had settled himself for a nap by the fire. 
Miss Sapio was still sitting at the writing-desk, her cheek 
resting on her hand, staring into vacancy. Hewett 
drew a chair close. 

“What a fairy that girl is!” he said. “What a 
pretty little creature. Everything seems to give her 
pleasure. I never came across any girl who laughed so 
readily without being stupid.” 

“ She’s good and happy. If we women could only 


PHOSIE AND AN OLD FRIEND in 


keep our youth and innocence, Hughie — ” said his com- 
panion, and she pressed her hand against her mouth, as 
if she feared to say too much. 

He looked at her seriously for a minute, with the 
thoughtful expression deepening in his face. 

“ What is the matter, Flo? What have I said to 
trouble you? ” he asked. 

Her eyes flashed and she brought her hand smartly 
down on the desk, making Quizzy start and snort, 
before he again settled into a comfortable position. 

“ I’m a devil, Hughie! ” said Miss Sapio. “ I want to 
love that child, I do love her, but when you speak of her 
like that, and look at her as you did — she’s so young 
and fresh — and I — ” 

Addison sighed. He was never jealous himself, and 
he could not understand jealousy in others. 

“ My dear Flo, if I am to talk to you at all I must say 
what I please,” he said. ” I do admire your little friend. 
She is rare and exquisite. A wave of delight from 
God.” 

Miss Sapio laid her head down on her arm, hiding her 
face. Addison quickly moved away a little vase of 
flowers which was in danger of being overturned. 

” Don’t be foolish, Flo! ” he remonstrated. ” Don’t 
confuse the artist with the man. What is the strength, 
the very foundation of our good fellowship? Sin- 
cerity. To be sincere with each other, you and I must be 
free to say what we like, to praise whom we choose, to 
enlarge, not to cramp, our capacity for enjoyment and 
work. You see what I mean? ” 

“ I see what you mean, Hughie,” she murmured, 
without lifting her head. 

” Then don’t be so unreasonable as to be annoyed 
with me for admiring a flower, or a bird, or the gaiety 
of a girl. Why, Flo — ” 

He glanced over his shoulder. Quilter was asleep 
Hewett stooped over Miss Sapio and kissed her hair. 


1 12 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


She raised her head and looked at him with 
bright, incredulous eyes, her whole face a yearning 
question. 

The level-headed pla5Avright moved hastily over to 
the fire and began to talk on indifferent subjects. 


CHAPTER XIII 


IN THREE MONTHS 

E UPHROSYNE’S meeting with Miss Sapio had 
taken place in mid- winter. 

By the time the daffodils were burning in the small 
garden of Henry Revell’s house, like pale yellow flames 
springing from beneath the swift feet of the Spring, all 
the world had changed for her. Even Little Gus was 
aware of the evolution of events. He took everything 
philosophically. A new adjective had lately seized 
upon his fancy. He said that all things were inevitable, 
from a thunder-storm to breaking a tea-cup. So when 
Mr RevelFs illness became serious Little Gus consoled 
himself very successfully, but failed to console Phosie, 
by saying it was inevitable. 

“ It seems as if it was to be! ” he said at intervals, 
with the kind intention of explaining his favourite word. 
“ And when a thing is to be, why not say iPs inevitable? 
Little Gus appeared to find great satisfaction in the 
unanswerableness of his argument. 

Jules Revell, for very different reasons, contem- 
plated the probable death of his uncle with resignation. 
As a rule he was sympathetic with Phosie’s anxiety , always 
asking the right questions and repeating the expected 
commonplaces, but the atmosphere of the quiet house 
affected his nerves. 

He was irritable with Mrs Bird and Gus, even with 
Phosie herself on occasion, and could hardly conceal his 
inward impatience with Mr Revell. When a man is old 
8 113 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


114 

and ill, he argued, the least he can do is to die as quickly 
as possible for everybody’s sake. 

Phosie found him more oppressive than ever. There 
was never a repetition, or even a shadow, of the dark 
anger which she had seen in Jules on the day he burnt 
the photographs. He was more reserved than she had 
known him, almost secretive in his manner of coming 
and going. She had no idea of how he spent his life away 
from The Stroll. 

The easy friendship of the days when he first appeared 
upon the scene changed between them to a feeling that 
was strained and provocative. It was in the air. Phosie 
saw how she affected him, against her own will, and 
knew that he loved her, but at the same time he was 
baffled, hurt, almost frightened by her absolute power 
of standing aloof. 

Phosie possessed, without knowing it, not only the 
gift of right choice, but a nature which was wholly un- 
swayed by another’s passion. She could pity, she was 
responsive to all affection, but the sacred fire of her love 
was not to be easily kindled. 

Jules loved her for the very qualities he would have 
destroyed, for while her personal beauty, the sole attrac- 
tion in his eyes when first they met, captivated him as 
much as ever, he had grown insensibly to speculate, to 
ponder, over the secret of the charm of personality of 
which beauty itself is but one of many manifestations. 
But too essentially coarse-fibred to cherish what was best 
in his own nature, he called himself a fool during those 
weeks of indecision, little knowing that only in the 
reverence and hesitation of his attitude was he worthy 
to be called her lover. 

Mr Revell had listened to the girl’s description of her 
visit to Miss Sapio’s house with pleasure and amusement. 
He had apparently taken some interest in the theatre 
in his young days, and told her lengthy stories of the 
success of Charles Matthews, Bucks tone, Helen Faucit, 


IN THREE MONTHS 


115 

and other worthies of the great Victorian days. He in- 
sisted on Phosie repeating her visit to her old friend, 
although she hated to leave him alone, and made her 
practise a dance, arranged by Miss Sapio and Addison, 
in his room. 

Mr Revell, who had long suffered without complaint 
from a painful internal malady, lived the last months of 
his life in his own methodical, conscientious way. 

Phosie wrote long letters, of which he dictated a part 
every day, to his old friends in France and Surrey. The 
old friend in Surrey, making a supreme effort, travelled 
all the way to London for the sake of passing a few hours 
in his company. 

Phosie, who had long known him as the “ My dear 
Herbert ” of her guardian’s correspondence, had hardly 
been prepared for quite such an old, old gentleman. 
He walked with two sticks and grumbled incessantly 
at a long-suffering, but evidently devoted, man-servant. 

Dear Herbert and Mr Revell did not seem to agree on 
any subject they discussed. Phosie sat and wondered 
at their strange idea of affection, but when they parted 
she saw the glint of brightness that was not caused by 
petulance in the eyes of the irascible old gentleman 
from Surrey, and after seeing him out she found Mr 
Revell in a very calm and happy mood. 

“ Phosie dear,” he said, taking the hand she laid on 
the arm of his chair, “ I am very thankful to heaven for 
having given me a true friend like Herbert. He is the 
only man in the world with whom I have discussed all 
topics, all, without fear or reservation. On the face of 
it, that doesn’t sound very much, but when you are older, 
Phosie, you will know — ” he broke off, with a gentle 
smile. “ No, you will never know, my little Phosie, 
but men like myself understand how difficult it is to 
overcome the limitations, the superstitions, the barriers 
between mind and mind. Yes, I am very thankful to 
Heaven for such a friend as Herbert.” 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


1 16 

There were a few other visitors: Mr Revell’s married 
sister, severe and elderly, who treated Phosie with be- 
coming haughtiness; his lawyer, to whom Jules was 
almost too cordial and subservient, a new phase of his 
character over which Phosie pondered; three or four of 
his colleagues from the Museum; a distinguished poli- 
tician, who snatched several hours from his crowded 
days to drive down to The Stroll to cheer an old friend; 
and a certain young nobleman, at whose father’s house 
Mr Revell had occasionally visited. 

He was an agreeable, simple youth, whose kindness 
to dear Mr Revell was encouraged by his agreeable, 
simple mother, little suspecting that the penniless, low- 
born girl whom dear Mr Revell had befriended could 
have become, had she chosen, the young nobleman’s 
wife. 

Phosie, not liking him, did not tell her guardian about 
his proposal. She confided the incident to Miss Lily 
Parlow, at the house next door, and that young lady’s 
amazement at the brilliance of the offer, and horror at 
its rejection, struck Phosie with equal amusement. 
She wished the opportunity had come to Lily instead. 
Lily would have made an adorable dolly of a countess ! 

For a little while, before the last harassing fortnight 
of Mr Revell’s life, Euphrosyne and her guardian passed 
through a memorable time of companionship and perfect 
sympathy. They were drawn together by the bond of 
her gratitude and his need for human tenderness. 

There was no sadness in those restful days ; it seemed 
to Phosie as if all life, all interest, was centred in the room 
where he sat. 

The world of action was shut out. She hardly noticed 
the dark presence of Jules. She had moved her bed 
into a little room next to Mr Revell’s, to be within call 
at any hour. He liked her to read aloud as of old, and 
she often carried one or another of his art treasures to 
his side, to be handled and admired. 


IN THREE MONTHS 


117 


He had made her a present of the quaint ring of tur- 
quoise hearts out of the locked drawer, and often lifted 
her hand to look at his gift, accompanying the action 
with a little compliment, for he believed that young 
ladies of Phosie’s age expected and had a right to little 
compliments. 

“You will soon be under the hammer, my friend! ’’ 
Mr Revell would often say to a piece of pottery, as a 
kind of farewell, as he restored it to the girl’s careful 
fingers. 

He told her the old anecdotes with the old relish, 
seeming to forget the present in his recollection of the 
past. There was a startling change in his look and 
bearing during those quiet weeks. He shrunk into 
great age. The old-fashioned rings slipped off his 
fingers ; his face was the colour of a faded sheet of white 
paper; his voice was thin and sounded far away; his 
eyes looked very blue and serene. 

One day Phosie went into the room carrying a very 
beautiful medallion of St. Guistina in her two hands. It 
WcLS the work of an Italian artist, whose cunning hand 
had long since returned to the dust from which it was 
created, but whose spirit lived in the undying beauty of 
his work. Henry Revell had found this treasure in a 
little shop in Florence, grimed with the dirt and dust of 
years. How often had Phosie heard him describe the 
joy of restoring the pure and lovely face to the light. 

He looked at it silently for several minutes, then he 
turned to the living face of the young girl. 

“ Take it away, Phosie,’’ he said; “ let it be the last 
of the fine works of man for me to look upon. Do not 
bring anything else, my dear — never again.’’ 

She returned in a couple of minutes, and he spoke 
once more, as if finishing the speech he had begun. 

“ I have done with all these things. My work is over,” 
he said. 

Phosie laid her cheek against his shoulder and twisted 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


1 18 

her fingers round his cold hand. They stayed so, silent, 
for a long time. 

“ I can’t thank you! I can’t speak of it! ” she said 
softly. “ But I shall never, never forget how you took 
us in, Gus and I, and what you have been to us all 
these years. My dearest! Oh, my dearest friend! ” 

Mr Revell pressed her fingers. 

“ Hush! Hush! ” he whispered. “ You mustn’t cry 
like this. I have never seen you cry before. Hush, my 
child! You have done far more for me than I ever did 
for you. You have made this dull house a home. You 
brought in the sunshine with you on that summer morning 
three years ago. My little Euphros3me — rightly named ! 
The old gods have passed, but not our living faith in 
their heavenly attributes. Euphrosyne always imparted 
gentleness and grace to the lives of men. She does so 
still, always patient, always obliging, always amiable! ” 

His old-fashioned words, spoken in his old precise way, 
touched her deeply. He patted her shoulder and passed 
his hand over her hair. 

“Just like a daughter!” he said. “My own little 
girl ! ” 

Three weeks after he had spoken these words — the 
most loving that Phosie had ever heard from his lips — 
Henry Revell died. 

Jules, who had had no affection for his uncle, at once 
cissumed the position of master of the house. 

Little Gus was frightened and subdued by the presence 
of death. 

The faithful housekeeper became hysterical, her fits 
of laughter and tears being mingled with a not unpleas- 
ing sense of importance on the day of the funeral. 

It was Phosie alone who grieved for her guardian, 
missed his step, and longed for the sound of the kind 
voice forever silent. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THROUGH THE STORM 

I F one could always smell the sulphur, how easy it 
would be to avoid the Devil! ” 

Mr Re veil had once said those words, jestingly, when 
comparing Goethe’s conception of Mephistopheles with 
that of Marlowe, and Phosie had thought to herself, 
after the way of youth, that good and evil were always 
distinguishable. 

Men and women, to her, were divided into good and 
bad, white or black; she knew nothing of the moral 
greys of the world, and while she understood complexity 
of character in tastes and opinions, her inexperience 
made no allowance for an equd complexity in conduct 
and motives. 

She never dreamed that insidious Temptation, with 
fatal Ignorance, can assume the pleading forms of Wel- 
come Guests, the one wrapped in a mantle of false illu- 
sion, the other trailing in the dust the bright wings of 
Love himself. 

When Jules Revell came into her life Phosie, in spite 
of the oppression of his masterful personality, accepted 
him in all good faith at his own valuation. 

She did not particularly like him, but there were times 
when her indifference warmed into friendship and they 
seemed in harmony with each other. It was then in 
his power to influence and attract her. Such times 
were rare, but the thought of them swept Jules off his 
feet. 

Only his self-control, so difiicult to shake, kept him 
119 


120 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


from betraying himself to the girl in extravagant words 
and deeds. All unknowingly she had brought him to 
heel, never realising how she excited, and at the same 
time held in check, a violent, and hitherto wholly self- 
indulgent, nature. 

It was a fortnight after Mr ReveU’s funeral. Mrs 
Bird, whose sorrow for her old master and agitation over 
his burial had rendered her useless in the house, was 
spending the day with her relatives in Peckham. 

Gus’s depression had given place to his usual cheer- 
fulness, enhanced by the importance of executing little 
commissions at neighbouring shops in his sombre suit of 
mourning. 

Jules had gone to the city in the morning to keep an 
appointment with his late uncle’s lawyer. Nothing had 
yet been decided about the disposal of Mr Revell’s pro- 
perty. His will was deposited at the lawyer’s office, 
and although there had been several consultations with 
Mr Faraday, of Messrs Faraday & Boyton, Jules had not 
told Phosie any particulars. 

She had known nothing of her guardian’s affairs, and 
how his death would affect her own position had not yet 
entered into her calculations. 

The house in The Stroll had been her home for so long, 
she was so accustomed to living there, that even the 
prospect of appearing in Hewett Addison’s sketch did 
not change her thoughts of the future. She supposed 
it would mean paying rent to Jules, whom she concluded 
would go away, leaving Mrs Bird to let rooms and manage 
the house. 

It was late afternoon when Jules returned from the 
lawyer’s office. He was in high spirits, and, meeting 
Gus in the street, gave him some money to spend on 
delicacies for supper. 

“Have you good news, Jules?” asked Phosie, 
when he entered the breakfast-room where she was 
sewing. 


THROUGH THE STORM 


I2I 


“Yes — great!’' he answered, shovelling coal on the 
fire before he pulled off his big Canadian fur coat and 
thick gloves. 

“ Fm so glad! ” she exclaimed, laying down her work. 

“ Well — ^good news for me,” he went on, with slight 
hesitation. “ But I don’t know whether it will be 
pleasing to you, Phosie. We shall see. I’ll tell you this 
evening. Is the Birdie coming home? ” 

“ Yes, but not till late. She has a key.” 

“ Then we shall be able to have a good business talk. 
We’ll enjoy ourselves. I’m sure we’ve been miserable 
long enough.” 

He laughed as he spoke, and she looked at him in some 
surprise. 

“ I don’t think you have been particularly miserable, 
Jules,” she observed. 

“You wouldn’t have me a hypocrite, Phosie? ” 

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean to say anything unkind, 
but it seems strange to talk about enjoying ourselves — 
here — ^so soon.” 

Jules shrugged his shoulders impatiently and laughed 
again; then, seeing her expression as she picked up her 
work, straightened his face and answered in a voice of 
serious reproach. 

“ We can’t measure grief by time, Phosie. I didn’t 
love my dear uncle any the less because I don’t rave 
about it. If you like to think me heartless, you must. 
I’ve been misunderstood before. It isn’t my fault, it’s 
my misfortune. I can bear it, even from you.” 

Phosie sprang up, all contrition and sympathy. 

“ Forgive me, Jules! ” she cried, and laid her hand on 
his shoulder. 

He was staring gloomily into the fire. 

“You don’t know me, Phosie,” he said, without look- 
ing round. “I’m such a rough, uncouth sort of fellow. 

I don’t know how to talk to women. I’ve never had 
anything to do with them in any way, for I’m different 


122 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


from other men. Why, I never cared to have a girl for 
a friend till I met you.” 

He had chosen his words shrewdly. She was more 
contrite, sympathetic and flattered, touched by the sad- 
ness in his voice and believing him implicitly. 

The timely arrival of Little Gus saved her from 
humbling herself entirely. She was cishamed of her 
cruelty. How could she have thought Jules indifferent? 
What was her loss compared to his ? 

Miss Lily Parlow joined them at supper, by Phosie’s 
invitation. She looked very sweet in the black frock 
she had put on as suitable to the occasion, and Jules 
expressed his admiration in stealthy glances. 

He imagined, quite wrongly, that Phosie was acting 
the spy, and enjoyed his own skill in carrying on a flirta- 
tion without being suspected. Had he been sure of her 
he would have behaved very differently, for then it 
would have been good sport to let her know what he was 
doing and make her wretched with jealousy. 

Lily was pleased with herself and ogled Gus and Jules 
with quiet complacency. She thought they were both 
in love with her, being at the age when young ladies 
secretly enact romantic love scenes in their minds with 
every unmarried man whom they meet. 

Little Gus, revelling in muf&ns, was far too engrossed 
to be fascinated, but Jules thought her a most winning 
little person, and contrived to tell her so, unheard by the 
others, several times during the evening. 

After supper they sat round the fire and roasted chest- 
nuts. Lily and Jules carried on the conversation, en- 
couraged in their small attempts at wit by the apprecia- 
tion of Gus, who was ready to laugh whether he saw the 
point of a joke or not. 

Phosie sat in silence. Now and again Jules glanced 
at her thoughtful face and his attention wandered for a 
second from the matter in hand, but he made no effort to 
draw her into the talk. 


THROUGH THE STORM 


123 


As the clock struck half-past nine Miss Lily Parlow 
rose, shook the bits of chestnut in her skirt on to the 
hearth, and said she must go, having promised to be 
home by five-and-twenty minutes to ten. She was 
always punctual to a minute. 

J ules and Gus took her to the door, the former escort- 
ing her in all gallantry down the steps of the house and 
up the steps next door. 

Phosie pulled the blind in the breakfast-room on one 
side and craned her neck to watch them go. 

It was a dark, stormy night. She saw how the gaunt 
branches of the plane trees shivered, and the great lilac 
bush in the garden dipped and curved to one side under 
the lash of the wind. 

Jules, after exchanging a few cordial words with Mrs 
Parlow, who admitted her daughter, returned to his own 
house, shutting the door noisily behind him. Phosie 
heard him talking to Little Gus in the hall, and then the 
latter, leaning over the banisters, called out: 

“ Good night, Phosie! Jules says I look so tired, so 
Pm going to bed.” 

“ Oh, very well, dear. Good-night! ” she rephed. 

Jules re-entered the breakfast-room just as she turned 
Irom the window. 

“ It’s as cold as charity! ” he said, with a shake of his 
shoulders. “ Can’t you hear the wind howling? Let’s 
have a log on the fire.” 

” It is hardly worth while so late,” she answered, but 
Jules had fetched the log and thrown it on the sinking 
embers without noticing what she said. It crackled and 
spluttered and threw out little sparks of fire. 

” That’s better! ” he exclaimed, giving the log, as he 
was fond of doing, a smart kick with his heel. “Now 
we can have our talk.” 

“ Not to-night,” said Phosie. “ I’m tired, and it’s 
nearly a quarter to eleven.” 

“ Oh, yes, I won’t keep you long — it’s awfully im- 


124 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


portant!” he said earnestly. “Do sit down for a 
moment. I promised Mr Faraday to tell you at once. 
Please, Phosie! Only five minutes! ” 

“ Oh, very well.'’ 

She sat down again in the low chair. Jules crossed 
the room and closed the door. Then he seated himself 
on the other side of the hearth. She looked at him 
expectantly, but he seemed to find it difficult to begin. 

“ What have you to tell me? ” she asked, after waiting 
for a minute. 

“ About my interview with the lawyer,” said Jules, 
“ about my uncle’s will, Phosie.” 

“ Yes?” 

Again he hesitated. The log still hissed on the fire. 
She thrust out her foot to extinguish a spark upon the 
rug. The sound of the wind, which they had not noticed 
during the early part of the evening, was growing more 
shrill and loud every minute. 

“My uncle has left directions that his collection of 
pottery here, and the things he kept at his bank, are to 
be sold by auction. They ought to realise a very fair 
amount. He was not a rich man, but he has left quite a 
tidy little sum of money. Everything is specified in the 
will. This house is a freehold. Of course it is also 
mentioned in the will.” 

“You are his heir? ” asked Phosie. 

The frequent repetition of the word will, and Jules’s 
evident, if suppressed, excitement in what he had to say, 
jarred on her. 

“ I am his heir,” he replied slowly. “ I am his sole 
heir. He leaves me everything, except a small legacy 
to his doctor — everything! Do you realise what that 
means, Phosie? ” 

He leaned forward, eagerly studpng her face. She 
pondered for some seconds. Then her expression 
changed. 

“ I suppose it means that I — * 


THROUGH THE STORM 


125 


“You are penniless!” interrupted Jules Re veil. 
“ He forgot all about you. His will was only made a 
year ago, but he doesn’t mention you. What do you say 
to that? ” 

“ I say that he never forgot me! ” she retorted, with 
a flash of anger. “ He was my dearest, kindest friend 
always. I will not reproach him — no, not for a single 
minute in my inmost thoughts. I congratulate you on 
your good fortune, Jules, but you needn’t waste your 
pity on me, for I don’t want it. Do you think I’m going 
to break my heart over money? No, indeed! The 
world is too happy a place for that.” 

She rose and moved towards the door. A muffled 
sound of thunder rumbled in the distance and the howl 
of the wind was deadened into a moan. 

Jules sprang up and threw himself in front of her, 
clutching at both her hands and pulling her slowly, but 
forcibly, towards him. She resisted his effort, more 
in surprise at the suddenness of the action than in 
anger. 

She put her hands on his shoulders, for he had let 
them go, and tried in vain to push him off, but he only 
drew her more strongly into his embrace. 

“It is all yours!” he exclaimed. “Everything I 
have is yours! I love you — you know how I worship 
you! Phosie — no — ^no— ^on’t be frightened — Phosie! 
I love you! I want to marry you — ^now, Phosie — don’t 
be foolish — ” 

She hardly heard what he said. All the oppression 
of all the months she had known him enveloped her 
spirit. She struggled wildly for freedom — for literal 
freedom with the strength of every muscle, and for moral 
freedom from the mastery and violence of his soul 
against hers. 

For a few seconds, she could not tell how long, she 
was conscious of the fierce lock of his arms, of’the terrible 
nearness of his face, eyes glaring into eyes, his breath 


126 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


on her cheek — then they were apart, with the table 
between them. 

They bent towards each other, panting. There was 
a gleam of lightning, a near peal of thunder, and the 
lash, lash of rain against the windows. 

“ Are you mad? ” gasped Phosie, pushing back her 
disordered hair. “Have you gone mad? How dare 
you — dare you — Jules! How dare you — ” 

He recovered himself quickly. She saw how his big 
chest rose and fell more and more evenly; his face re- 
gained its usual colour, but the zigzag, swollen vein on 
his forehead still seemed to throb. He pressed his 
clenched, shaking hands down upon the table and looked 
at them, slowly spreading out the fingers till they were 
all flat and quiet. 

There was tense silence. She partly understood the 
struggle for self-control going on in the man before her. 
She was inwardly trembling herself, and in that few 
minutes, as she watched him, the ignorance of her child- 
hood was gone. Fear swept over her. The room was 
like a trap. 

Slowly, stiffly, Jules raised his head, as if it cost him 
an effort to look at her. 

By one of those strange revulsions of feeling that seize 
upon a woman in the midst of such a storm of emotion, 
she was suddenly sorry for him. 

“ Forgive me! I forgot myself! ” he said in a quiet, 
restrained voice. “ Don’t be cruel to me, Phosie. I 
promise — I swear not to frighten you again. We must 
fight it out some time, you and I ! Let it be to-night.” 

She moved away from the table, pressed her hand to 
her eyes for a second, and then laid it unsteadily on the 
back of a chair. 

‘ ‘ What is there to say, J ules ? To-morrow ! ” she sighed, 

“To-night!” he repeated hoarsely. “I can’t wait. 
You must listen to me! You must! ” 

Phosie was obliged to sink into her chair. She was 


THROUGH THE STORM 


1 27 

weak and faint. He knelt down beside her and she 
shrank away. 

“ Oh, don’t! ” he pleaded. “ I only want to tell you 
of my love. You see your power. You can make me 
do anything you please.” 

She rested her head against the back of the chair, 
listening to the rain — listening to the man — apparently 
dazed, but alert in mind and still afraid — horrible! 
Horrible ! 

Jules implored her to marry him. He poured out his 
desires in a stream of thick, eloquent words. He urged 
his suit in the wildest and most extravagant terms of 
praise, endearment and flattery. 

He reproached her bitterly for the terror she had shown. 
He implored her to trust him, only to trust him, that was 
the keynote of it all. 

He would show her the depths from which she had 
raised him ! He forgot her youth. He forgot her 
innocent outlook on a world of which she knew so little, 
but he did not forget to paint his story in the false colours 
of spurious romance. 

The fire burnt low. The storm without had spent its 
fury. 

Jules had taken her hands. They lay cold and still 
in his. He was tired with his own vehemence, and even 
his voice was hoarse, but he went on repeating, in differ- 
ent words, all the arguments that were plausible, pas- 
sionate, bewildering. 

Phosie was pale as death. Her hair was pushed back 
and her forehead was set into a stern, unchanging frown. 
Her half-closed eyelids quivered, and her young face 
looked as if it were drawn and puckered with age. 

Suddenly Jules bent down and kissed her hands, 
without raising them, as they rested passively in his. 

His lips were burning. 

A shudder passed over her at his touch. She opened 
her eyes, as if she had been asleep, and rose to her feet. 


128 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

He, too, sprang up and waited, breathlessly, bending 
towards her. 

“ It is impossible, Jules,” she said. “ I do not love 
you, and even if I did, I would not marry you.” 

An exclamation broke from his lips, but she lifted 
her hand for silence and spoke again — ^strange words 
from a girl of eighteen : 

“You tell me you have lived a wicked life. You are 
not ashamed of this, but I am — for your sake. I will 
never marry you. You are not good enough to be my 
husband.” 

She turned and left him. All her fear and anger were 
gone. 

Slowly, wearily, she mounted the dark stairs. The 
gas was burning in the little strip of passage outside her 
room. As she put up her hand to turn it out she heard 
a step behind her, and stopped, her arm still raised. 

It was Jules. 

She moved away from the gas to the open door of her 
room. Their eyes met. He put both hands on the wall 
on either side of the door, bent forward and spoke to her. 
She heard what he said. As he stooped lower, trying to 
whisper, she put up her hand, higher and higher, till it 
was laid on his throat. 

A pulse seemed to hammer under her palm. She 
looked at him steadily and sadly — a long, brave look 
without flinching — and all the while her hand pressed 
him gently back. 

They understood each other. His eyes drooped be- 
fore her, but her own were luminous and wide and never 
wavered an instant. Their mute struggle ended. With- 
out another word he turned and went away. 

Phosie raised the blind in her room, knelt down by 
the window, and lifted her face to the sky. 

It was still black and lowering and wind-swept, but 
one bright star shone in the east. 


CHAPTER XV 


GOOD-BYE TO THE STROLL 

W HEN Phosie looked out of her window, the 
morning after the storm, the world seemed to 
have been drenched in tears. 

The leaden sky was empty, washed out; the walls 
of surrounding houses might all have been painted brown 
under cover of darkness for their look of gloom and 
similarity. Trees and bushes were still heavy with rain, 
and the long, dank grass in the garden was beaten flat. 

Phosie had slept little, disturbed by ugly dreams. 
She had heard the housekeeper return home at about 
midnight. 

She opened her door and listened. There was not a 
sound in the house. It was stiU very early. 

Refreshed by the mere thought of cold water, she 
washed and dressed, wrapped herself in a shawl, spread 
the coverlet tidily, and began to empty the chest of 
drawers, putting her small stock of clothes in little neat 
piles upon her bed. 

She also took her books out of the hanging bookshelf, 
and two or three framed photographs of famous pictures, 
Mr ReveU’s gifts, off the walls, dusting each one care- 
fully. Then she cleaned her boots and put them on, 
putting her house shoes and bedroom slippers beside the 
tiny bundles of underclothes. 

Her best dress was laid on the pillow of the bed, 
together with her glove-box, containing one new pair 
and two fancy handkerchiefs; her hair ribbons — Phosie 
loved vivid hair ribbons; the necklace Miss Sapio had 
9 129 


130 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


given her years ago at Airy Street; and a pretty chiffon 
scarf, greatly prized, which had been Lily Parlow’s 
present on her last birthday. 

Then she counted her money. Well! She had run 
away from Airy Street with less. This was poor con- 
solation, but it was better than none at all. Her amount 
of portable property was not imposing, but while she was 
getting it ready to be packed in the trunk she would 
have to buy her expression had been bright, satisfied, 
animated. She did not allow herself time for reflection 
until her preparations were completed. 

The distant sound of Mrs Bird pulling up blinds, un- 
bolting doors and raking out the kitchen stove — Mrs 
Bird’s household spiriting was always of a noisy, bustling 
order — told Phosie that she was no longer alone in the 
house, awake among dreamers, but that another day 
had begun for them all, and with the knowledge came 
the overwhelming recollection of why she must escape 
from her home of years. 

This house belonged to Jules Revell, and she could 
accept nothing from his hand. 

She could never be his friend again. She knew he 
would marry her, for he had implored her to marry him, 
but there were minutes during their extraordinary 
interview of the previous night which were branded on 
her memory. 

She felt old in the thought of these minutes — shamed, 
humiliated — the bloom of her youth brushed off by the 
hand of a thief. She covered her face with her hands 
and burst into passionate tears, scalding, difficult 
tears, that choke in the throat and make the temples 
throb. 

All her gay, happy spirit was overshadowed by the 
vague, instinctive horror of a woman who has trembled 
on the brink of — ^she knows not what — who has looked 
into depths she cannot fathom, who has been saved from 
unspeakable misery. 


GOOD-BYE TO THE STROLL 13 1 

For a few minutes she wept, and even moaned aloud, 
without thought of self-control; then she suddenly 
sat erect in her chair and firmly mastered her quivering 
nerves. 

The desire of the night before, when she had found 
herself alone in her room and the struggle over, came 
back with redoubled force. She carefully locked her 
door, to prevent Mrs Bird from bursting in, and knelt 
down by the window with clasped hands and face up- 
turned, but her prayer found no words, for she still 
sobbed, and now and aigain put up a finger to stop a tear 
running down her face. When she spoke at last it was 
only one broken sentence: 

“ I thank God — who never deserts us — ” 

Then she dropped her head down upon her folded arms 
in another burst of irrepressible emotion, her whole body 
shaking, and her eyes blinded with rushing tears. 

A quarter of an hour later Phosie called over the 
banisters to Little Gus. She heard him whistling and 
talking to the dog. 

“ I want to speak to you very particularly, dear! ” 
she said softly, when she had attracted his attention 
and he stood listening half-way up the stairs. “ Will 
you come up — quietly, Gus.” 

He checked his whistle and obeyed. She beckoned 
him into her room. He stared blankly at her pale, 
serious face. 

“ Gus, I am going away from here to-day, and of course 
you’ll go with me,” said Phosie. “ Don’t look so 
troubled. I have made all the plans.” 

” Going away? What on earth for? ” exclaimed Gus. 

Phosie hastily, but clearly, explained Mr Revell’s 
will. He was much quicker at grasping the situation 
than she had expected. 

” But Jules would let us stop on! ” he urged. ” He 
wouldn’t turn us out, Phosie. He’s a good feller. He’d 
want us to stop.” 


132 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“Dear Gus!” said Phosie, “please don’t ask me to 
give you all my reasons for going away so quickly. It 
isn’t a foolish or a wilful desire. It is impossible for me 
to live here any longer. Should I say this so earnestly 
if I didn’t mean it? You can trust me, can’t you? ” 

“ Of course I can,” he replied, his eyes wandering 
from the empty bookshelf, which he had just noticed, 
to the things on the bed. “ I suppose you mean it’s 
inevitable, but what are we going to do, Phosie? How 
are we going to live? I’m not afraid of work, but I 
dunno what I can do, without learning something.” 

“ We are going to Miss Sapio’s first of all,” she 
answered. “ She has promised to get me an engagement 
on the stage, as soon as I can act the little sketch Mr 
Addison has written. I shall earn plenty of money.” 

“ What about me? ” asked Little Gus, anxiously. 

The question was puzzling. Phosie shelved it. 

“ Oh, you’ll get on all right,” she said. “ Now, I 
want you to go downstairs and put your clothes together. 
You had better have breakfast. Tell Mrs Bird my 
head aches, and ask her to bring me a cup of tea. I 
don’t want anything to eat — well, perhaps I’d better 
have something — just a piece of bread and butter. If 
you see Jules — ” 

She paused in frowning thought for a few seconds, 
then continued: 

“ If you see Jules say I don’t feel very bright this 
morning, but I shall be down soon. You need not tell 
him that we are going away.” 

Little Gus departed with a heavy step, feeling very 
mystified and miserable. It did not enter his head to 
question Phosie’s wisdom in going away so suddenly, 
but he had been too comfortable and happy at The 
Stroll to think of leaving it without a pang. He wished 
feebly that Mr Revell were alive, or had left all his pos- 
sessions to Phosie. 

“ If I was a millionaire,” thought Little Gus, “ I’d 


GOOD-BYE TO THE STROLL 133 

leave her every penny when I died. No, I wouldn’t 
wait to be dead. I’d give her every penny while I was 
alive. I’d give her every ha’penny! ” 

Somewhat cheered by the thought of his generosity, 
Gus managed to eat a good breakfast. It was nine 
o’clock before Phosie left her room. At the sound of 
her step Jules bounded up the stairs from the breakfast- 
room, meeting her in the hall. She was dressed to go out. 

He began to speak as he approached, too quickly, 
nervously. 

“ Good morning, Phosie! I thought you were never 
coming down. Where are you off to so early? Going 
to market, eh? Why don’t you send the Birdie? ” 
Phosie did not even glance at him, but she knew 
without turning her head how he looked — smiling, 
fresh-coloured, with his full hps, and liquid, brown, 
animal eyes. She answered in an expressionless voice, 
as if she were repeating a hardly-learned lesson. 

“ I am going to buy a trunk to pack our things — ^mine 
and Gus’s. We are leaving here this morning. You 
need not feel any anxiety on my account. I am going 
to my friend. Miss Sapio.” 

“Going away? My dear child!” cried Jules, in 
amazement, and he moved nearer, laying his hand on 
the door. “ What ridiculous ideas have you got in your 
little head now? You don’t mean it? ” 

“ Yes, I am going away,” was all she answered. 

“ But I can’t allow this! ” said Jules, half in earnest, 
half in joke. “ It’s too absurd. Phosie darling, be 
reasonable! Let’s talk it over. I wouldn’t coerce you 
for the world. You know that, don’t you? Come 
now, Phosie ! Don’t be unkind. Don’t be hard. What 
a change in the little girl! What’s the matter, dear? ” 
He stooped a little, trying to hide his surprise and 
anxiety, but the look he met was so determined and so 
appealing in its pale intensity that he drew back, and his 
restraining hand dropped from the door. She opened 


134 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


it without a word. A rush ol east wind swept into the 
hall, and he was alone. 

Then Jules gave way to one of his rare fits of emotional 
passion. He flung himself into his room, swore, bit his 
nails, stormed up and down, up and down, like a wild 
beast in a cage. He had turned the key in the lock, 
but there was no danger of interruption from Gus or 
the frightened woman downstairs. They only listened 
to his tramp, tramp, and talked about him in whispers. 

They would have been horrified to see him as he saw 
himself in the glass — the eyes bloodshot and swollen, 
the ugly purple vein looking as if it would burst between 
them, the usually smooth hair torn down over the fore- 
head, the nostrils and mouth quivering. He was like 
a man who had been flogged, swept with impotent rage 
and self-pity. 

No one in the world had ever seen Jules Re veil in 
such a paroxysm. He guarded the secret of his weak- 
ness, as it was natural he should, thinking of it after- 
wards with surprise and shame. 

When Phosie returned, an hour later, she found Mrs 
Bird and Gus waiting for her. They told her that Jules 
was in the breakfast-room, and he wanted to speak to 
her. There was something important he had to say. 

A quick walk in the fresh air had restored the usual 
colom to her face and made her feel strong and vigorous. 
She was absolutely certain of a welcome and good advice 
from Miss Sapio, and the difficulty of finding rooms, 
which had baffled her at fifteen, only gave her a sense of 
amused responsibility. 

How she would have enjoyed describing her plans to 
Mr Revell! Even Lily Parlow, after a hasty interview, 
confessed that the prospects were not unpleasing. At 
first she had been shocked at her friend’s conduct. 
For any girl to leave a comfortable house, unless bound 
for Gretna Green, or its modern equivalent, a registry 
office, struck Miss Parlow as extremely imprudent. 


GOOD-BYE TO THE STROLL 135 

Phosie finished packing, exchanged affectionate fare- 
wells with Mrs Bird, and sent Little Gus for a cab. 
Then she obeyed Jules’s summons. 

He was sitting in front of the fire, but it had gone out. 
His hands were in his pockets, his head simk on his 
breast. 

“ I am here. What do you want to say to me? ” said 
Euphrosyne, standing just within the door. 

He did not look roimd. She could hardly hear his low, 
surly voice. 

“You neednT have run away in such a hurry this 
morning. I didn’t tell you the truth yesterday about 
my uncle’s will. He has left you a small annuity. You 
had better write to the lawyers, Faraday & Boy ton. 
You know their address. I’m not a thief. I don’t 
want to cheat you out of your money, even if I could.” 

“ Why did you lie to me last night about this? ” said 
Phosie, surprised, pleased and agitated by this news. 

Jules got up and put one knee on the seat of his chair, 
leaning over it, looking at her. 

“ Why did I lie? Oh, you can guess. I wanted you 
to feel dependent — wretched — living on my bounty. 
All’s fair in love! ” 

He continued looking at her, and she at him, in silence 
for a minute. Then he spoke again. 

“ Are you really going away? ” 

“ Yes.” 

He turned his head on one side, avoiding her eyes, 
while he asked the next question. 

“ What is your reason? I think you ought to teU me. 
I promised my imcle to look after you.” 

“Ah, Jules!” 

He ignored her interruption, and went on in the same 
voice of low, sullen protest. 

“ My uncle talked to me on the subject. He trusted 
me. He was not suspicious and hard, as you are.” 

“That’s enough!” exclaimed Phosie. “I don’t 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


136 

want to hear you speak of Mr Revell. Is there anything 
else you have to say? ” 

“You know that I love you, Phosie ! You know what 
I want. Darhng! ” 

For one minute she saw the man of the night before — 
tender, passionate, dangerous — but he no longer had any 
power to move her. 

She was not angry or embarrassed. She was simply 
aloof, unattainable, self-possessed. He read his answer 
in her face. 

Little Gus called her from the hall, and she turned to 

go- 

“ Am I not to see you any more? ” said Jules. 

“ No.” 

“ Or write to you? ” 

“ No.” 

“ WeU— ! ” 

He shrugged his shoulders, pondered, and waited for 
her to speak the last words. 

“Good-bye, Jules! Try to be happy — try not to 
blame me — it isn’t my fault — ” 

“ Oh, if you knew how I love you, Phosie! If you 
knew how a man can love. But women don’t know. 
Have it your own way. Go if you want to, but don’t 
think you can get rid of me so easily.” 

That was all she could hear him say. His voice 
trailed into silence, and he threw himself again into his 
chair, staring at the dead fire. 

As the cab turned out of the quiet Stroll into the 
busy traffic of Hammersmith Broadway, Phosie leaned 
out of the window and kissed her hand. 

“ Can you see Mrs Bird or Lily Parlow? ” asked Little 
Gus. 

“No, they have disappeared,” she answered. “lam 
just saying good-bye to the dear old Stroll. If Mr Revell 
were there I couldn’t have gone away, but as it is — ” 

She clapped her hands together and, to her com- 


GOOD-BYE TO THE STROLL 137 

panion’s great surprise, threw her arms round his neck, 
nearly choking him. 

“ There’s a soul-satisfying hug for you, Augustus 
Stewart-Cromwell,” she said. “ It’s in honour of our 
escape, my dear.” 

‘‘ I dunno what you mean,” said the startled Gus. 
“ There never was another girl like you, Phosie! When 
I came upstairs this morning you were quite pale and 
black under your eyes. You looked as if you’d seen a 
ghost, but now! What are you laughing about? ” 

“ Because we’re running away again, Augustus — 
because the sun is shining — because I'm young — I don’t 
know — every reason in the world.” 

” I liked The Stroll,” said Gus. “ We were very 
jolly there, you know, Taffy and you and me. I dunno 
whether we shall ever be so jolly again.” 

” Oh, yes, we shall,” cried the girl. ” But we’ll 
never forget the dear old Stroll — never, never! ” 


CHAPTER XVI 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 

M ISS SAPIO’S little drawing-room was turned into 
the stage of a private theatre. 

The rugs were rolled into a heap outside the door. 
The piano was pushed against the windows and sur- 
rounded by chairs, stools and ornaments. All the 
electric lights were turned on, and the members of the 
audience were packed together as closely as possible in 
one corner of the room. 

It was the final rehearsal of the pantomimic sketch 
which Hewett Addison had written for Euphrosyne. 

Miss Sapio, most energetic of amateur agents, had 
been fortunate enough to obtain a trial performance — 
trial turn as it is called — at one of the principal West 
End music-halls, and this rehearsal was taking place 
a couple of days before that eventful day. 

The composer of the music, a shy, talented yoimg 
man in spectacles, sat at the piano to accompany, look- 
ing for directions to his friend Addison. Little Gus, 
Miss Sapio and Mr Quizzical Quilter were all squeezed 
together on a small sofa. 

Standing behind them, mildly annoyed at this unex- 
pected disarrangement of the usually comfortable 
room, stood Walter Race, the handsome young man 
who had got into the habit of wasting so much of his 
time in Miss Sapio’s house. 

Having been spending Christmas at a country house, 
he had not met Phosie or Little Gus during the two 
montlis which had elapsed since they left The Stroll. 

*38 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 


139 


It must be confessed that Gus, to whom he had just 
been introduced, was not in a condition to make a very 
good impression, having a very bad cold in his head, 
and wearing, plainly visible above his collar, a red flannel 
bandage round his throat. Walter Race wondered how 
such a mean-looking, unattractive little fellow came to 
possess the name of Stewart-Cromwell. He imagined, 
although no one had actually said so, that the dancer 
was Gus’s sister, and that belief did not increase his 
anxiety to see her. 

Miss Sapio, wearing one of her amazingly brilliant 
tea-gowns, had an arm locked in Gus’s and the other in 
Mr Quilter’s, perhaps to keep them from slipping ofl the 
little sofa. Hewett looked grave, but unusually well 
pleased with himself, for the playlet satisfied liim. 

Quizzy, puffing a cigar, enlivened the proceedings 
and jocose remarks addressed to an imaginary orchestra, 
with an occasional ear-splitting whistle supposed to 
come from the gallery. 

“ I suppose we’re all ready to begin, Hughie? ” said 
Miss Sapio 

’Ear! ’ear! Ring up, my boy! ” put in Mr Quilter. 

“ Then perhaps you’ll play the overture. Tailing? ” 
said Hewett to the composer. 

“ Clear, please! ” shouted Quizzy, in imitation of a 
stage manager before the curtain rises. “ Progrums, 
one penny each! Refreshments, gentlemen? Nice, 
cool glass o’ beer — book o’ the words! ” 

“Order! Order!” said Miss Sapio, playfully 
threatening to push her neighbour off the end of the 
sofa. 

“Beg your puddin’! Mum’s the word!” said 
Quizzy. 

The composer ran his strong, sensitive fingers over 
the keys before he began. The little overture was 
melodious and haunting. Miss Sapio smiled approval 
at Addison, and Race enjoyed himself for the first time 


140 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


since he entered the house that afternoon. Quizzy 
closed his eyes and beat time with one hand, wagging 
his head from side to side. 

As the composer struck the last cord Addison clapped 
his hands and Euphrosyne entered. 

The scheme of the sketch was as light as thistledown, 
for it dealt with the adventures of a banished fairy, 
alone by moonlight in the garden of a mortal. 

All the stage accessories were necessarily absent — 
the moon, the owl, the bat, the flowers — but Addison 
had described them before she began, and the fairy 
herself was a fairy in mufti, half a fairy and half a 
girl. 

Her grass-green frock was of silk chiffon, a sparkling 
girdle clasped her supple waist, her little satin shoes 
were tied round the ankles with silver cord, her wreath 
of flowers had not been sent home from the costumier’s, 
and her hair, instead of floating free, was closely twisted 
into a thick plait. 

Her cheeks were flushed with excitement, and her 
eyes sought Addison as she tripped into the room. 
Tailing played an alluring waltz, and Phosie, with out- 
spread arms, danced her first dance with exact and 
finished skill on the tips of her toes. 

Addison was rewarded for the hours he had spent in 
teaching her, but he realized that the charm in all she 
did depended on her own personality. The idea, the 
steps, the gestures were his, but the peculiar joyousness 
of her beauty — an evasive, expressive beauty not only in 
face, but in figure — turned his little sketch into a master- 
piece. 

Fleet was the word to describe her. She moved as 
quickly as a bird skimming over water, as lightly as a 
leaf blown before the wind, as gaily as a bubble floating 
on the air. 

Addison’s smile broadened, and Miss Sapio gave vent 
to spasmodic bursts of applause, while Quizzy and Gus 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 


141 

seemed to be fascinated by the dancer’s little feet, on 
which they kept their eyes fixed. 

Walter Race, stooping forward, watched her with 
absolute delight. He was not the man ever to forget 
himself in his surroundings, but Phosie’s dance affected 
him in a most strange and unexpected way. 

He was bewitched, and the habit of mind that made 
him critical of everything he saw or heard gave place 
to the admiration of a boy, intense and absorbing. 

He could have looked at her for hours. The effect 
upon him was that of a dream which comes to a man 
when he is only half asleep, held and controlled by semi- 
conscious effort, but embodying at the same time a 
fancy too delicate and bright for awakened reason. 
Beautiful ideas of his youth, long hidden in the darkness 
of the common days, flashed before him. He re-lived 
many hours in a few minutes, and they were the hours of 
lost illusions, when the world was lovely and love was in 
the world. 

The dance ended, and Walter’s dream was over. He 
saw Euphrosyne for what she was — a pretty girl, an 
amazingly pretty girl, with a laugh which seemed to 
echo some forgotten laugh of his childhood. No! Not 
a laugh at all, but the ripple of a foamy stream where he 
had played with his brothers, or the lilt of an old song 
without words, or a magic chime ringing in the hare- 
bells. 

Walter smiled and pulled himself together. Away 
with such silly thoughts! He heartily joined in the 
loud applause, led by Quizzy, who shouted “ Bravo! ” 
in a voice which raised the roof. 

Euphrosyne was enfolded in one of Miss Sapio’s 
smothering embraces, and emerged with ruffled hair. 
Addison shook hands, and Walter, without waiting for 
an introduction, did the same. 

She looked up into his face, and Walter, with a sudden 
impulse, pressed her hand fervently in his. Oh, she was 


142 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


delicious! He thought she was a nymph, a Dresden 
china shepherdess! Were there ever such sweet lips 
and sparkling eyes? He felt as if he wanted to get her 
away from all these coarse people — ^just wrap her up in 
tissue paper and carry her home in his pocket. 

Mr Quizzical Quilter, not to be outdone in gallantry 
by the younger men, knelt on one knee and kissed 
Phosie’s hand, to which she submitted with a good 
grace, afterwards assisting the old gentleman to get up 
again. 

“ I think we shall make a hit,” said Addison. 

“Oh, Pm dead certain of it, Hughie! ” cried Miss 
Sapio. 

“Quite right, my dear!” agreed Quizzy, solemnly. 
“ You can take the word of an old ‘ pro,’ you’ve got a 
winner.” 

Little Gus’s pleasure was expressed in murmurs and 
laudable attempts to suppress his sniffing. 

Walter did not join in the animated talk which fol- 
lowed, but Phosie was none the less aware of the fact that 
he was looking at her. Directly there was an oppor- 
tunity she spoke to him. He thought her frank, friendly 
little act of boldness the most captivating thing in the 
world. 

“ We have seen each other before,” she said, nodding 
wisely. 

“Impossible!” he replied. “I should never have 
forgotten you.” 

“You were in a hansom, delayed by a block in the 
traffic at Piccadilly Circus. I was on the edge of the 
pavement with two friends,” said Phosie, decisively. 
“ Your cab nearly ran over me. I jumped backward 
laughing, and you heard me. Don’t you remember now ? ’ ’ 

“Of course I do!” he exclaimed. “It was last 
autumn. Of course I remember all about it. I had 
been walking across Regent’s Park with a man named 
Wainwright.” 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 


143 


“ What’s become of Wainwright? ” put in Addison, 
catching the name. “ I haven’t seen him for a century.” 

“He is stopping at my brother’s place in Suffolk,” 
answered Race. “ I got him a commission to paint my 
brother and his wife. Poor old Wainwright! He has 
to work too hard. Do you know Mrs W.? ” 

“ I have never met her,” said Addison. 

“ A most undecorative lady,” continued Race. “ Of 
course other men’s marriages are generally mysteries, 
but I would defy anybody to solve Wainwright’s.” 

“ What’s the woman like? ” asked Miss Sapio. 

“Wainwright’s mother!” said Race. “I don’t 
mean in appearance, for I believe his mother is only of 
normal plainness, but in age. The kind of person whose 
sentiments do equal credit to her head and her heart. I 
think she married Wainwright when he was very young 
and has slaved for him ever since. He is apparently 
devoted to her. I never pretend to understand an 
artist — you think I’m ill-natured? ” 

His speech ended in this abrupt question to Phosie. 
He had suddenly met her eyes fixed on his face. 

“ Perhaps, a little,” she replied diffidently. “ But of 
course this lady is not a friend of yours. One doesn’t 
speak like that about one’s friends.” 

She stopped and blushed. What right had she to criti- 
cise, for a moment, anything he said? It was good of 
him to notice her at all. Race made a little bow. She 
had unintentionally given him the snub he deserved, for 
Mrs Wainwright had proved herself his friend by years of 
generous hospitality. 

It amused him to see how attentively Phosie listened 
to her friend, Miss Sapio’s, instructions. Was she very 
simple, he wondered, or very deep? The desire to get 
her to himself, to talk to her and hear her laugh, grew 
stronger every minute. 

His first admiration changed to curiosity. He was 
like a boy who had watched a clever mechanical toy set 


144 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


to work, and was longing to handle it and find out how 
it was made. 

At Miss Sapio’s suggestion the young men re-arranged 
the drawing-room, and then she rang for tea. Hewett 
Addison made up the fire, and they all drew their chairs 
close, Phosie sitting on a low stool beside their hostess. 

Walter Race lounged on the sofa, in shadow, where 
he could look at her unobserved. Little Gus, who never 
talked to strangers, perched himself uncomfortably on the 
music-stool, now and again slipping his elbow down on 
the keys, to the great annoyance of Tailing, the com- 
poser. 

“You must excuse me joining in the cup that cheers 
without inebriating, Flo,” said Quizzy. “ I find that 
tea upsets my nerves — never touch it by doctor’s orders 
— over the left! ” 

So he took whisky-and-soda instead. 

Addison and Miss Sapio were the principal talkers, 
Phosie putting in a word here and there, and always 
ready with her laugh of appreciation at the smallest of 
jokes. Walter thought she was a clever little flatterer, 
for he did not believe her simple pleasure could be 
genuine. 

The flickering, red glow of the fire lent a peculiar 
charm to her face and figure. It made them both in- 
definite. It was like a tantalising veil wrapped round a 
fairy, now displaying, now concealing, the lines of 
beauty lost in shadow. 

One of her feet was thrust forward to the fender, and, 
as she still wore her heelless dancing shoes, Walter could 
see what a pretty foot it was; the foot of a dancer, 
strong, springy, well-shaped. A foolish desire, impos- 
sible to gratify, came into his mind. He wanted to lay 
his hand upon the ground, palm upwards, and ask 
the girl to rest her foot upon it, just to see whether 
his long fingers would meet above the high instep. 

He smiled at his own absurdity. No doubt such an 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 


M5 

idea would shock her primness — no! that was equally 
absurd. There was no primness about Phosie. 

He had not been so bewitched with a girl since — Rosa- 
lind? — Lucy? — for the life of him Walter could not 
remember which was the last of his lights-o’-love. 

When Addison at last left off drinking tea and Little 
Gus had devoured all the macaroons, Phosie rose from 
her low seat and said she must go home. Miss Sapio 
did not ask her to stop to dinner. In fact, she did not 
invite any of her visitors to delay their departure, except 
Addison, and her invitation to him was conveyed in a 
lift of the eyebrows and a questioning smile. He ac- 
cepted with a grave nod. 

Phosie went upstairs to change her shoes. The men 
were left alone for a minute. 

“ What do you say to my discovery? '' asked Addison, 
leaning his back against the mantelpiece and looking 
curiously at Walter and the old clown. 

“Sweet, my boy!” exclaimed Quizzy, positively 
hissing the word. “ Sweet! Prettiest little bit o’ frock 
I’ve seen for years. Little bit of all right! Talk about 
ankles! They look as if you could snap ’em between 
your finger and thiunb. Talk about eyelashes ! If 
once a man got tangled up in ’em he’d never want to get 
out again. Talk about — ” 

“ She’s charming, Hughie,” interrupted Race, who felt 
sure that Mr Quilter’s compliments would sooner or 
later give him offence. “ I congratulate you. Your 
sketch is a gem.” 

“ The setting for a gem, you mean,” said Addison. 

“ Where does she come from? ” asked Race, ignoring 
the ruffled Quizzy. “ How did you get to know 
her? ” 

“ She’s an old friend of Flo’s,” replied Addison, “ an 
orphan girl, hving all by herself in rooms — at least, not 
quite by herself, for she seems to have adopted that 
fellow who has just gone downstairs. I don’t quite 

lO 


146 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


understand the situation. She treats him like a brother, 
but they are not related.'' 

“Is he quite right? " asked Walter, tapping his fore- 
head. 

“ Oh, I think so," said Addison. “ Something of a 
simpleton, you know, but a very good-tempered, harmless 
simpleton." 

At that minute Miss Sapio and Phosie returned. The 
girl was simply, even poorly, dressed, with a bunch of red 
berries in her small black hat and a bright red worsted 
muffler round her neck. They were the only touches of 
colour she could afford to brighten the sombre look of her 
serviceable clothes. 

The whole party went down into the slip of a haU. 
Miss Sapio, according to custom, kissed Phosie many 
times and implored her not to think about being nervous 
at the coming dehut. Addison gave her the same advice 
in less florid language. 

“ I’m going to hoof it towards my club,” announced 
Quizzy, having struggled into an ulster of huge checks, 
put on his hat before the mirror in the hat-stand, and 
lighted his cigar. “ Anybody who wants the pleasure of 
my company is welcome to have it. Don’t all speak at 
once." 

Phosie intimated that she and Gus were going in the 
opposite direction, and Race did not say anything, so 
Tailing, the composer, found himself walking down the 
street beside the atrocious check ulster. His friends 
looked after him with smiling faces. 

“ You could play checkers on dear old Quizzy’s back," 
observed Miss Sapio. 

“ Tailing makes himself a martyr to civility," said 
Walter Race. 

He followed Phosie and Gus down the steps, turned 
to lift his hat to Miss Sapio, and coolly walked away beside 
the girl. 

There was a minute's silence. 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 147 

“Shall we walk home, Gus?” she said suddenly, 
turning her face from the too eager gaze bent upon it 
from her other side. 

“ I dunno,” said Gus, with his usual vagueness. 
“Just as you like.” 

“ Don’t you think it is a very long way to walk? ” 
said Walter Race, gravely. 

She did not fall into his little trap, but looked up at 
him with laughing eyes. 

“ How do you know it is a long way, Mr Race? ” 

He tried not to laugh. Little Gus, unconscious of his 
ignorance, enlightened him. 

“ We live at No. 5 Belton Terrace, turning off Park 
Road, it’s handy to ever5Avhere and you can’t miss it if 
you follow the Baker Street ’buses,” he said, repeating 
their landlady’s formula. 

“ Well, Belton Terrace is too far for you to walk. I’m 
sure,” said Race, promptly, to the girl. Let us get a 
cab.” 

“ Oh, no, we’ll go by this,” said Phosie, decisively, 
signalling as she spoke to the driver of a passing 
omnibus. 

“ Outside only! ” cried the conductor, beckoning them 
forward. 

They climbed aloft. Phosie twisted her muffler more 
warmly round her neck and told Gus to put up his collar. 
Race sat behind them, and, leaning forward with his 
arms folded on the back of their seat, he was close to the 
glowing cheek of the girl, and could see that her dark 
eyelashes were long enough to curve upward like the 
petals of a tiny flower. He recollected Quizzy’s foolish 
words: “If once a man got tangled up in them he’d 
never want to get out again.” 

They chattered gaily about her dance — Miss Sapio’s 
kindness — Tailing’s music — London crowds — Christmas — 
Walter hardly knew what was said. He paid as little 
attention to her words as to his own, for he felt instinct- 


148 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

ively that Phosie shared the subtle delight of the fleeting 
minutes. 

It was little Gus, the only member of the party who 
seemed aware of the cutting wind and passing of time, 
who stopped the omnibus at Belton Terrace. 

“ Are we there already? ” exclaimed the girl, in- 
genuously, as she rose to her feet. 

“Alas! So soon! ” said Race. 

Belton Terrace was a narrow, rather sombre street. 
It looked very mean and poor to the young man, to 
whom the word London conveyed the idea of the prin- 
cipal roads in the West End. Phosie glanced at him, 
guessing his thoughts. 

“ I’m afraid Belton Terrace has seen its best days,” 
she said with a smile. “ Perhaps you would rather not 
venture as far as No. 5 ? ” 

“ On the contrary, I long to discover No. 5,” said Race, 
smiling too. 

The street was deserted, except for the solitary figure 
of a melancholy man with a bell in his hand, which he 
tinkled feebly as he walked along, occasionally stopping 
to look up at the windows of the houses. On his head 
he carried a tray, covered with a bit of green baize. 

“ That is our muffin man,” said Phosie, in reply to 
Walter’s question about the tinkling beU. “ Surely you 
have seen a muffin man before to-day? ” 

“ No, I don’t believe I have,” said Race. “ Does he 
spend his whole life ringing a bell and trying to sell his 
wares? ” 

“ Only in the winter,” she replied. “ I expect he 
makes the muffins during the summer and keeps them 
stored up. They’re always very delicious, but rather 
leathery. Here’s the key, Gus dear. Mr Race, will you 
come in? ” 

Walter accepted the invitation as frankly as it was 
given. He had made up his mind to go in, but hardly 
dared to hope it could be managed so easily. 


A FINAL REHEARSAL 149 

No. 5 was a particularly dull little house, with long 
lace curtains hanging limply at the windows, a milk-can 
on the top step, and two cats engaged in the first stages 
of a lengthy dispute in the area. 

“It is only right to inform our distinguished visitor 
that this is not our individual milk-can,” said Phosie, 
seriously. “ Also, those are not our cats. Our apart- 
ments — a most elegant suite, as you will see — are on the 
top floor, and we have nothing to do with the other 
lodgers. We look down on them figuratively, and they 
look down on us literally. Mr Race will understand 
these social distinctions have to be preserved if he 
has any experience of lodgings. But perhaps his area 
is all his own and he is undisputed lord of his milk- 
cans and his cats.” 

“You ridiculous girl!” exclaimed Walter. 

Gus, after much fumbling, opened the door and closed 
it again behind him. The passage was close and dark, 
the only furniture being a very dusty, lop-sided umbrella 
and hat-stand, and a dead fern in a blue pot. 

“Run upstairs and light the gas, will you, Gus?” 
said the girl. “ Keep against the wall as you ascend 
to the elegant suite, Mr Race, the stairs in these stately 
homes of England being dangerous at the corners.” 

Gus obeyed Phosie and disappeared into the darkness 
above, slowly followed by the other two. 

Walter Race abominated bad air, and, to add to his 
momentary disgust, he stumbled over a frayed mat 
at the top of the first flight, rapping his shin bone 
smartly against the banisters. 

“ Oh, have you hurt yourself? ” cried Phosie. “ I’m 
so sorry.” 

She stopped and put out her hand impulsively. 

“ Let me guide you! ” she said. 

Walter reached up and took her hand. He felt how 
strong and warm it was through the woollen glove. 

Phosie laughed aloud, thrilled by his touch and 


150 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

childishly amused by the need of groping their way. 
It was music in his ears. The prettiest laugh in the 
world. 

He held her hand in a close grasp and followed her 
lightly and merrily up the stairs. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE ILLUSIVE HOUR 


UPHROSYNE, during the two months which had 



elapsed since her flight from The Stroll, had had 
time to put her house in order. 

An early application to Messrs Faraday & Boyton, 
Mr Revell’s lawyers, had revealed the truth about her 
late guardian’s will. He had left her a small annuity. 
Mr Faraday considered it very small indeed, ridiculously 
small, but the penniless child of a poor acrobat looked 
upon fifteen shillings a week as an almost princely income. 

Little Gus’s name did not appear in the will, for Mr 
ReveU had only tolerated the boy for her sake. Jules 
Revell was his heir. 

Phosie had seen Jules several times, but not spoken 
to him. He had followed her in the street; she had seen 
him walking up and down Belton Terrace late at night; 
he had written to her half a dozen times. 

She had returned his letters unopened, and stared 
at him blankly, with quiet, unflinching eyes, when he 
had tried to stop her, ignoring his outstretched hand. 

She was not afraid of him, or even angry, but she 
could never again take his hand in friendship. She 
could never again trust his word. 

She had been in his power and could forgive him for 
the impulse which would have wrecked her life, but not 
for the deliberate design — as she saw it now, looking back 
upon their days together — to corrupt her mind with a 
lying tongue. 

Removed from his overmastering personality, given 


152 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


time for searching thought, Phosie shuddered at the 
recollection of Jules Re veil, but the quick instinct in 
judging the morality of men which all women possess 
in a greater or lesser degree, hide it and deceive them- 
selves as they do, saved her from brooding over his 
conduct. 

She had told him the truth. He was not good 
enough to mate with her. There was nothing more to 
be said. It was over. 

When Walter Race entered the little sitting-room at 
the top of the house in Belton Terrace, he was greeted 
with the perfume of violets. A great bowl of them, 
a gift from Miss Sapio, stood in the centre of the table. 

Dazzled for a few seconds by the flare of the g£LS after 
the dark staircase, he shaded his eyes with his hand, 
while Phosie, pulling off her gloves, knelt down on the 
hearthrug to light the fire. 

“ Pm so glad I laid it before I went out this morning,” 
she said. “Now you will both reap the reward of my 
virtue.” 

She was right. In a very little while there was a fine 
crackling fire. Race, giving his hat and overcoat to 
Gus, looked smilingly round the room. 

It was a small room with a low ceiling. The walls 
were painted light green, and the floor was stained; 
there were only two rugs; the four wooden chairs had 
been painted white, and were piled with cushions covered 
in green chintz; there were the books from Phosie’s 
room in Mr Revell’s house, and her framed photographs ; 
a couple of huge golden vases — from Miss Sapio — stood 
on the mantelpiece, and the window was covered by a 
long green curtain. 

An ancient sideboard, of the unsightly, cumbersome 
style that is called “ handsome ” by lodging-house 
keepers, was adorned with several plants in pots, and a 
great many sprigs of holly and mistletoe gave the roon\ 
a festive appearance. 


THE ILLUSIVE HOUR 


153 


Little Gus, with the proud consciousness of having 
helped to paint the walls and enamel the furniture, 
thought it was simply gorgeous, worthy of the golden 
vases ; Phosie was satisfied, but Walter Race was pained 
by its poverty. 

His first impression of pretty simplicity in the leaping 
firelight was forgotten in a more deliberate scrutiny of 
the poor little rugs, the wooden chairs, and the cheap 
curtains. He thought of his chambers in Plantagenet 
Court, Savoy, heated, furnished, decorated in the most 
approved modern style, and wondered what impression 
they would make on Phosie. He longed to try the 
experiment, but dreaded, at the same time, that she 
would lose her pretty self-possession in the surroundings 
of wealth and ease. 

“ Shall we have supper or shall we talk? ” said the 
hostess, when Race was settled in one of the two arm- 
chairs by the fire, smoking the inevitable cigarette. 

“ Supper,” voted Little Gus. 

I suppose we ought to call it dinner for your benefit, 
Mr Race,” said Phosie, for the second time within half 
an hour reading his thoughts. “ But Gus and I have our 
principal meal in the middle of the day, and if we called 
that luncheon we should be in the tragic position of 
never having a dinner at all.” 

Race did not answer. He was content to listen to 
her voice whatever she talked about, content to watch 
her lazily in silence. 

He wished Little Gus at the other end of the earth 
He was noisy, uncouth, cliunsy, in the way. 

The supper was very simple, but even Race’s fastidi- 
ousness was satisfied with the way it was arranged. 
He was no glutton, with all his faults, and he ate Phosie’s 
bread and honey and drank cocoa with as much enjoy- 
ment as if he had been dining at his club. 

They drew their chairs round the fire for a dessert of 
oranges and nuts. Gus devoted himself to the work 


154 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

in hand, leaving ail the talk to Phosie and their 
guest. 

She suddenly asked, to Race’s surprise, whether he 
had a brother in Canada. 

“Yes,” he answered. “ My brother Frank went out 
there to make his fortune some years ago. I don’t 
think he has succeeded. We haven’t heard from him 
for quite a long time, but he’ll turn up one day — I know 
Frank.” 

“ I can tell you what he has been doing,” said she. 

“Little witch!” exclaimed Race. “What do you 
mean? ” 

“ The nephew of my old guardian, of whom I told 
you,” continued Phosie, “ is a man named Jules Revell. 
He had a little theatrical company in Canada, and your 
brother was a member of it. Jules showed me his photo- 
graph. You are very like him, are you not? ” 

“ Yes, but Frank is bigger than I am, taller and 
heavier built, although he is some years younger,” said 
Race. “You must have a wonderful memory. Miss 
Moore, to connect a man whom you had seen once in the 
street with the portrait of his brother whom you had 
never seen. It’s simply astonishing.” 

“Is it? ” said the girl. “ Perhaps it was because I 
remembered your face so well. Your expression inter- 
ested me. It was so bored and yet so keen. That sounds 
contradictory, doesn’t it? ” 

“ I think it is very true,” said Race. “ As a rule I 
am easily bored, but yet I take an interest in life. I look 
forward to a day when the interest will be greater than 
the boredom. Up to date it has been the other way 
about.” 

“ Don’t you enjoy your work, if you ever do any ? ” 
asked Phosie. 

“ I’m afraid I don’t,” he answered, smiling ruefully. 

“ Never enjoy your work? ” cried Phosie. 

“ Never do any,” said Walter. 


THE ILLUSIVE HOUR 


155 


She was frankly surprised out of her good manners. 

“ Whatever do you do with yourself all day 
long? 

He puckered his lips, and passed her the orange he 
had been carefully peeling. 

“ I don’t know! Eat and drink and sleep.” 

” I think you must be laughing at me,” said Phosie. 
‘‘You can’t waste all your time. Are you — are you — a 
politician? ” 

He laughed at the gravity with which she was evidently 
trying to fathom his idleness. 

” No,” he replied, “ I don’t care about politics, except 
when I’m stopping at my brother’s house in Suffolk, 
and then we quarrel over politics aU day long. John 
is a violent Tory. I’m the only Liberal in the 
family.” 

” From conviction? ” said Phosie, hoping to make 
him serious. 

” More from contradiction. I’m afraid,” he answered. 

Phosie tried another tack. 

” Have you any accomplishments? ” 

He meditated for a second. 

“ I can flirt,” he answered gravely. 

” Do you call that an accomplislunent? ” 

“ A most difficult one.” 

Phosie laughed. 

“ Then I suppose you would call falling in love a 
fine art? ” she said with a twinkle. 

“ Certainly, for it means an eye for beauty, discrimina- 
tion, and abandonment of self,” said Race. 

“ Now, I think you’re sincere — for once,” said Phosie, 
still laughing. 

” Of course I am. You have lighted on the one topic 
which absorbs me at the minute. It seems to be the 
only thing worth living for.” 

He dropped his voice and bent forward in his low 
chair, looking and speaking with an emotion which was 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


156 

partly real, partly assumed, but wholly wonderful and 
sweet to the girl. 

She studied his handsome face with thoughtful, melt- 
ing eyes, only seeing what was good in it, herself moved 
to inexplicable tenderness, lost in the bewilderment and 
joy of her first, last love. 

It was Walter Race who broke the long, eloquent 
silence. 

“It is very good of you to let me come here. I see 
you are all alone in the world — ^practically aU alone — 
and I appreciate the honour you do me. I am not un- 
worthy of your trust and confidence.” 

“ I know that. I believe it,” she said. 

He could not have explained the feeling that had 
prompted him to say these unexpected, serious words — 
perhaps it was the unconscious revelation in her eyes — 
but Phosie understood them. 

Again they were silent. 

Little Gus, with the nut-crackers dangling between 
his fingers, stared into the fire. He was in shadow and 
they thought he was asleep. 

“ Are you going to see me dance the day after to- 
morrow? ” said Phosie, with a sudden change of tone. 

Walter Race was grateful. Another minute and he 
might have forgotten that it was the first time he had 
seen the girl. What was the matter with him? It 
was all too delightfully foolish. He was roughly shaken 
out of gazing silence into commonplace speech. 

“ Can you doubt it? ” he reproachfully answered her 
question. “ Of course I shall be there. May I ask 
for you afterwards at the stage-door? ” 

“ I am going to supper with Miss Sapio.” 

“ Then so am I,” said Walter, promptly. “ But Miss 
Sapio doesn’t know it yet. I must make the oppor- 
tunity to invite her to invite me.” 

He looked at his watch. The hour was even later 
than he dreaded. 


THE ILLUSIVE HOUR 


157 


Phosie, glancing down, gave a start of surprise. 

“ Forgive me ! I’ve stopped an unconscionable time ! ” 
he exclaimed, looking for his hat. “ But it’s your fault, 
you know.” 

” My fault? ” she repeated, standing on tiptoe to 
help him on with his coat. 

” Yes, you’ve bewitched me. From the minute I 
saw you dance in Miss Sapio’s little drawing-room I 
became a new man.” 

” Nonsense,” said Phosie, giving him her hand. 

It’s the truth,” said Race. ” I only hope the effect 
will last. I’m afraid it will want renewing very soon.” 

“You can renew it the day after to-morrow,” said 
Phosie. 

“ Much too long! ” he exclaimed; then, after he had 
shaken hands with Gus and was standing at the door, 
“ When? To-morrow? The morning — the after- 
noon? ” 

“ No, the day after to-morrow,” she repeated firmly. 

“ You’re horribly cruel.” 

“I’m sensible.” 

“You’re — no. I’d better not tell you! You will 
think I’m exaggerating.” 

Phosie went to the top of the stairs, lighting him down 
with a candle. He found his way by the banisters, 
stopping again and again to look up at her. Each time 
she waved her hand. When he had finally disappeared 
she still remained in the same position, listening, till the 
street door closed noisily behind him. 

Then she returned to the sitting-room and cleared 
the supper-table, humming a tune softly to herself. 

Gus was still sitting by the fire. When she had made 
everything tidy, Phosie laid her hand on his shoulder 
and gave him a little shake. 

“What a sleepy old boy you are! ” she said gaily. 
“ Good-night, dear. I’m going to bed.” 

Gus raised his head and looked at her. His small, 


158 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

red-rimmed eyes blinked. Her hand was still on his 
shoulder. He jerked his head towards the door. 

“ He’s a fine-spoken feller,” said Gus, meaning their 
departed guest. “ He’s a handsome feller. A gentle- 
man, I suppose, born and bred? Well brought up, 
good fam’ly, all that sort of thing? ” 

Yes,” said Phosie. 

” No wonder you’ve took to him,” Gus went on. “ I 
suppose you’ve took to him? You like him, Phosie? ” 

“Yes,” she said again. 

Gus returned to his old attitude, cheek on hand, looking 
at the fire. 

“ Don’t sit up for me,” he said. “ Good-night, 
Phosie.” 

She went out of the room, still humming the gay little 
tune to herself, and shut the door. 

“ Of course she’s took to him,” muttered Gus. “ It’s 
very natural, but they only saw each other for the first 
time to-day. Only to-day! She and I — for years and 
years — I dunno — ” 

He sat alone by the dull hearth, for a long time, 
muttering to himself and staring into vacancy. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A TRIAL TURN — AND AFTER 



LTHOUGH Miss Sapio’s influence, aided by the 


1 ~\ growing reputation of the author of Euphrosyne’s 
sketch, had obtained the trial turn, it was beyond their 
power to secure her an appearance in the good part of 
the programme. 

The manager of the Paramount, for all his admiration 
of Miss Sapio, was too good a business man to run un- 
necessary risks with his audiences. He had seen Phosie’s 
turn and thought it charming, but when he said to the 
stage manager, “ Put it on early,” there was no appeal 
from his decision. 

Phosie had discovered another old friend in the 
second violin of the Paramount orchestra, none other 
than Mr Simmons, once of Airy Street. She had re- 
cognised him at the first rehearsal, squinting up at her 
out of the depths below the stage. 

Their meeting was mutually cordial. Mr Simmons, 
directly he was at liberty, made his way to where she 
stood and shook her warmly by the hand. 

“ Have you given up composing and scoring music, 
Mr Simmons? ” asked Phosie, wondering whether he had 
been quite so stout in the old days. 

“ Oh, no, my dear,” said Mr Simmons, bringing his 
tractable eye to bear on her face, while the other ex- 
plored the dim distance of the gallery. “ But I felt I 
wanted a change, so I returned to my first love, the fiddle. 

I still carry on the old business in the daytime. How 
you’ve grown, Phosie ! Seems a long time since we was 


159 


i6o A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

all so happy and cosy together in Airy Street, don’t 
it?” 

Slightly surprised at this agreeable description of the 
domestic life of Mr and Mrs Simmons, she agreed that 
it seemed a very long time indeed. 

” Your poor father was a wonderful man in his own 
line,” he went on. “ But he wouldn’t have made any- 
thing of a living nowadays. Contortion, pure and simple, 
has gone out. The public taste is improving. What 
they want now is a show with brains with it.” 

Phosie glanced at the turn in rehearsal at that minute 
—a revoltingly ugly man in dirty rags making panto- 
mimic love to a lady who was balancing a champagne 
bottle on her chin — and asked Mr Simmons if that was 
really his opinion. 

” Yes, my dear,” he answered solemnly. “ What 
the British public wants is brains, and I’m pleased to 
see that your little turn has got ’em.” 

“ Then you think I shall succeed.” 

“ Don’t you be afraid about that,” he said kindly. 
” You’ve got a good thing. I know what I’m talking 
about. I haven’t been in the business for thirty years 
for nothing.” 

Phosie was not at all nervous, but her excitement 
steadily increased, like a fever in the blood, as the 
fateful hour drew near. 

Little Gus, with the best intentions in the world, 
proved himself a very trying companion, for he worried 
her all day long to eat, to drink, to sleep; to do every- 
thing in short for which she was disinclined. 

Miss Sapio, whose own performance would prevent 
her from being present, sent Phosie many final instruc- 
tions by Hewett Addison, together with a large tin of a 
certain meat extract, in which she had faith, a cupful to 
be taken just before, and after, she appeared on the 
stage. 

Addison was the girl’s tower of strength; he was not 


A TRIAL TURN— AND AFTER i6i 


fussy, and she could not help wondering that such a 
quiet, whimsical, artistic man should be happy in the 
daily companionship of Miss Sapio. 

Phosie admired and loved her friend, but she found it 
very difficult to understand Hewett’s attitude, until it 
dawned upon her that, in spite of their intimacy, she 
herself knew very little of the playwright’s real char- 
acter. Such a man is not to be labelled, pigeon-holed 
and pulled out at intervals, after the manner of the dear, 
faithful, but uninteresting, ordinary friend. 

He must be given much, for his own rare gifts are of 
priceless value; he never satisfies curiosity; he flies 
from the one who claims his confidence as a right; he 
possesses, and will accord, absolute freedom in thought 
as well as action. To realise these things is not the only 
way, but one of the best ways — should one happen to 
meet a genius — to win his affection. Miss Sapio was 
learning the lesson, but it was the hardest lesson of her 
life. 

The Paramount by day was as different from the 
Paramount by night as Mr Simmons, tinkling at his old 
piano in his shirt sleeves, was different from Mr Simmons, 
washed and brushed, playing the violin in the orchestra. 

The spacious entrance to the hall was ablaze with 
lights and gay-coloured posters. Big men, in chocolate 
and fawn livery, stood at the swing doors, while the 
attendance within the building was divided between 
powdered footmen and black-gowned, white-aproned 
programme girls. 

The much-frequented bar was discreetly placed at 
the rear of the hall. A thick cord was stretched between 
the lounge and the stalls. When the performance began, 
at eight o’clock, only the cheap parts of the house, the 
upper circle and gallery, were filled. 

Phosie’s sketch was announced by a specially-printed 
slip inserted in the programme, Addison’s name having 
saved her from appearing simply as “ Extra Turn.” 

II 


i 62 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


As Walter Race lounged into the Paramount, a few 
minutes past eight, he was amazed at the sight of row 
upon row of empty seats, forgetting that he himself, on all 
other occasions, never dreamed of entering a music-hall 
before nine o'clock. He glanced over his shoulder at the 
friend with whom he had been dining. 

“ Hard lines for the first turns,” he observed, 

‘Devilish hard lines!” agreed the friend, his eyes 
fixed on a girl who was singing on the stage as he paid 
for his programme. 

Race dropped into his seat and lighted a cigar. He 
was disappointed at the smallness of the audience for 
Phosie’s sake, and pleasantly conscious of suppressed 
excitement. 

He had not seen her since they parted at the top of 
the stairs in Belton Terrace. Forty-eight hours’ absence 
had filled him with an almost painful longing to be with 
her again, for he had thought of her continually, and even 
dreamed of her at night. 

Walter Race did not attempt to hide the truth from 
himself. He had fallen in love with this girl, but it was 
not yet the overwhelming, headstrong love he had ex- 
perienced once or twice in his life. 

He was still master of himself, and able to see the ab- 
surdity of his sudden infatuation. What did he know 
of Phosie? A social gulf yawned between them. 

Ordinary friendship was out of the question — there 
was nothing of the hypocrite about Walter — and to 
tell her of his passion, to try to awaken her love in return, 
could only end in one way — marriage. 

Yes, marriage! Little as he understood Phosie at this 
time, and little as he imderstood himself, there was never 
any doubt in his mind about that. 

” Is this the turn you’re interested in? ” said Carl 
Stratton, passing him the slip out of the programme. 

Stratton was a worn, thin man of Hebrew descent, 
with noticeably fine, restless dark eyes, and a small. 


A TRIAL TURN— AND AFTER 163 

mobile mouth, hardly hidden at all by a black, pointed 
moustache. His thin hair, also black and glossy, was 
parted in the middle and slightly curled on his high 
temples. His nose was big and showed his race; he 
was deeply wrinkled, and his sallow skin, about the 
nostrils and under the eyes, looked unhealthy. The 
well-kept hand which he stretched out to Race was 
adorned with a heavy gold ring, the bezel beautifully 
chased. 

Mr Stratton, to the casual observer, was a well-groomed, 
fashionably-dressed man of five-and-thirty, pleasant 
to see and pleasant to hear. A student of men, such as 
Hewett Addison, might have classed him as a crafty 
Jew, older than he looked, a rogue most cleverly dis- 
guised both by nature and by art. 

“Yes, this is the turn I am interested in,” answered 
Race. 

“ I’m sorry it isn’t in the middle of the programme,” 
said Carl Stratton. “ Is the lady quite a novice? ” 

“ I believe so, but I don’t know much about her,” said 
Race. “ I have only met her once.” 

“ I hope she will appeal to the gallery,” said his com- 
panion, with a glance round the empty stalls. 

“ I’m afraid not,” said Walter. “ She seems to be 
a very artistic, dainty little person, the cameo type of 
beauty. I doubt whether it wiU be effective behind the 
footlights.” 

“ The footlights certainly create and shatter illusion,” 
said Stratton, vaguely. “ But on the whole I think they 
are kind to beauty of any sort. I don’t admire actresses 
myself.” 

“ How can you talk of actresses in the lump? ” said 
Walter, smiling. “ Every actress is an individual 
woman, you know.” 

“ Oh, yes, but I think they are all alike,” rejoined 
his friend. “ The only difference is in the place they 
hold in the profession — ^promising, passing, passe.'* 


i64 a spirit of MIRTH 

Race laughed absently and did not reply. The 
orchestra had started to play Tailing’s melodious, haunt- 
ing overture to Phosie’s turn. 

His longing to see her was suddenly tinged with un- 
reasonable jealousy. He was jealous of Stratton, of 
the rest of the audience, of the people on the stage. 
Then a foolish dread took possession of his mind. Would 
he be disappointed? Was she really as pretty, winning 
and light-hearted as he imagined? 

The curtain rose on the dim, soft light of a garden 
beneath the moon. 

Hewett Addison, standing in the wings, was satisfied 
with the stage effect, and Hewett was very hard to 
satisfy. 

Mr Quizzical Quilter, puffing his cigar in the front row 
of the circle, started a faint, but encouraging, little burst 
of applause. 

‘Charmin’! Quite charmin’!” said Quizzy to the 
unknown gentlemen on either side of him. 

Phosie appeared. Her bright brown hair rippled 
and curled to her waist, and she wore a wreath of great 
white blossoms. Her slender arms were outspread, and 
she hovered over the ground as lightly as a butterfly 
over a meadow. 

The smile which had captivated Hewett Addison, 
when he first saw her dance in Miss Sapio’s drawing- 
room, played about her mouth. She seemed to be 
possessed by happy thoughts, unconscious of the 
audience, dancing for sheer joy. 

Walter Race, with hardly an effort, gave himself up 
to the delights of Fancy. The stage changed to a real 
garden with real flowers nodding in the night wind, 
a real owl blinking in the branches of a shady tree, a real 
bat flying past, and an ideal fairy lost in the wonder of 
a real world. 

But Fancy is ever an illusive sprite. Suddenly he 
realised that she had flown. The stage was a stage 


A TRIAL TURN— AND AFTER 165 

again; he recollected having seen similar mechanical 
effects in Christmas pantomimes ; he was able to criticise 
the turn as a good turn, a pretty turn, but he doubted 
the success of it. 

Phosie was delightful. There was no doubt about 
that, but he admired her more away from the footlights. 
He was feeling the inevitable reaction from his intense 
longing to see her again. 

Was he in love after all? Walter hoped so. It was 
pleasant to be in love, up to a certain point. Yes, she 
was delightful. Of course he was in love! 

“ Quite a little beauty! ” said Carl Stratton, tapping 
his hands together once or twice, without making any 
sound, as the curtain fell. “ What do we have next? ” 

“Whatever it is Fm sick of the whole show!” ex- 
claimed Walter. 

Mr Stratton looked at him in mild surprise, little sus- 
pecting that his own indifference to Phosie’s turn had 
occasioned this outburst. 

“ My dear Race, it has only just begun! ” he said. 

Walter recovered his temper. 

“ I only came in to see this new turn,” he said 
hastily. “ And Fve promised to go to supper with 
some friends.” 

“ As early as this? ” asked his companion. 

“Yes! Ridiculous, I know, but Fm afraid I can’t 
get out of it.” 

He flung his coat over his arm and shook hands with 
his friend. 

“You needn’t hurry for a few minutes,” said Stratton, 
quietly. “ She has to change her dress. You’ll only 
be kept waiting at a draughty stage-door.” 

“ Vi^y, what do you mean, Carl?” asked Walter 
Race, smiling in spite of himself. 

“ I suppose you’re going to hunt for the lost fairy, are 
you not? ” asked Stratton. 

Walter laughed outright. 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


1 66 


“Good-night, Carl,” was all he answered, and went 
away. 

Mr Stratton turned his head to look after him, show- 
ing his white teeth in a wide smile of friendly farewell. 

‘ What a waste of money to buy a stall for that! ” 
he thought, and returned to his languid enjoyment of the 
entertainment. 

Walter Race found his way to the stage-door, where 
he met Hewett Addison just coming out. 

“ Well, how do you think it went? ’’ asked the play- 
wright, whose imperturbable face expressed neither 
satisfaction nor disappointment. 

“ Very well on the whole,” answered Race. “ What 
did you think of it yourself? You’re a better judge 
than I am.” 

“ Fve just seen Burnett,” said Addison — Burnett was 
the manager of the Paramount. “ He seems very pleased, 
and I think he’ll book it. I’ve made an appointment 
to meet him to-morrow. Now I am going round to 
see Miss Sapio. She will be waiting anxiously for my 
report. I shall see you later. Miss Moore will be out 
directly.” 

Race pushed through the swing-door into a narrow 
passage, from which he could see, at the bottom of half 
a dozen steps, a strip of the stage. 

He had never been behind the scenes of a theatre 
before, and even such a tiny glimpse was not without its 
interest. The stage-manager, with a shiny silk hat 
tilted to the back of his head, was talking seriously with 
a couple of men in Pierrot costumes, while a French 
artiste, with a wholly inadequate shawl thrown over her 
shoulders, held an animated discussion with a little 
Frenchman in evening dress, who held the lady’s tiny 
slippers in one hand and grasped the chain of a perform- 
ing dog in the other. This fox terrier was shaking all 
over, from nervousness or cold, and kept his eyes on 
his master’s face. Race, who understood French and 


A TRIAL TURN— AND AFTER 167 

caught some of Madame’s phrases, thought that Monsieur 
was even more to be pitied than Monsieur’s dog. 

His observations were cut short by the voice of the 
door-keeper. 

Yes, sir? ” said the door-keeper, leaning forward in 
his little office. 

“ Will you give my card to Miss Moore? ” said Race. 

The door-keeper, after the manner of his kind, read the 
card, looked at the gentleman with patronising curiosity, 
and whistled to a call-boy who happened to be within 
hearing. 

“ If you’re going past No. 7, Jimmy, you can take his 
card to Miss Moore — ^she’s that extra turn,” he ex- 
plained. ” Tell her both the gentlemen are waiting. 
Stand back against the wall, please, sir, you’re blocking 
up the gangway.” 

Walter did as he was asked, and found himself shoulder 
to shoulder with the gentleman whom he supposed, 
by the door-keeper’s words, had already sent in a card to 
Phosie. 

They naturally glanced at each other. Race saw a 
man much shorter than himself, heavy-featured, flushed, 
with bright, curious eyes and full, thick lips. He was 
not at all favourably impressed, and, with the coolness 
of his age and class, returned the fellow’s stare with a 
vague expression of contemptuous indifference. 

It was Jules Revell. Race did not look at him a 
second time, but it was characteristic of Jules to fur- 
tively study Walter, impressed by his ease of manner, 
his clothes, his evident superiority to his surroundings. 

Phosie rose in Jules’s estimation. He would have 
liked to see half a dozen such men hanging round the 
stage-door to see her come out, discussing her freely. 
In his eyes it would have enhanced her value. 

When she appeared at last, half hidden behind a 
magnificent bouquet, both young men started forward. 

Her eyes met Race’s and a beautiful colour leapt into 


i68 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


her cheeks. For a second she was oblivious to every- 
thing else, but then she saw Jules. He pushed in front, 
beaming on her, hat in hand. Race took a step back 
and waited courteously. He did not listen to what they 
said. 

“ That is not my bouquet, Phosie! ” exclaimed Jules. 
“ Did you get the flowers I sent you? Where are they? ” 
I can’t accept them. I have left them in the dressing- 
room,” she answered. Will you never understand 
me? ” 

He began to reproach her in a hurried whisper — she 
was cruel, heartless, wicked! Phosie stopped him with 
an imperious gesture which suited her well. 

“ It is no good, Jules. I am very sorry, but it is no 
good. I wish you would try to keep out of my way. 
You only make yourself miserable.” 

She looked at him imploringly for a second, and then, 
as his eyes grew soft and eloquent, dropped her own and 
hurried past him. 

“Are you going to Miss Sapio’s house?” she said 
quickly to the other man. 

Before he could answer she had pushed through the 
swing-door and was in the street. Race, amazed at her 
sudden energy, followed her at once, leaving Jules Revell 
alone in the passage. 

If the door-keeper and the call-boy, who had wit- 
nessed the little scene, hoped to see him make a fool of 
himself they were disappointed. He only shrugged 
his shoulders and gave them a nod of good-night. 

Anger and humiliation warned him to hold his tongue. 
For the minute he hated Phosie with all the bitterness 
of his heart. 

She had forgotten him. Walter Race sat beside her 
in the cab, and the perfume of his flowers filled the air. 

He praised her turn in extravagant terms. She 
laughed with pleasure and leaned her head back against 
the cushion. 


A TRIAL TURN— AND AFTER 169 

“ Are you tired? ” he asked, anxiously, bending 
dose. 

“ No, I am happy! Too happy! ” she answered. 

“ Why? Tell me why? ” he entreated. 

With truth she could have answered Because I am 
with you.” But even Phosie, with all her frankness, 
would not say that. 

“ I have made a success,” she said. “ I have pleased 
Mr Addison and the manager of the Paramount. I 
shall be able to earn a good living for myself and Little 
Gus.” 

“ Why are you so fond of that boy? ” asked Race. 
** I can’t understand it.” 

Phosie’s bright eyes opened wide in surprise. 

“ We have been friends, brother and sister so long. 
People don’t like Gus, for they don’t know him as well 
as I do. Poor fellow! ” 

‘‘He is so dull, so stupid! ” urged Walter. 

‘‘ Oh, no, he isn’t. He can be very funny when we’re 
all by ourselves. At least, he thinks I’m very funny, 
and perhaps I like that even better.” 

‘‘ Forgive me,” said Walter. ‘‘ I ought not to have 
spoken of your old friend like that, but I can’t help 
seeing how utterly unworthy — ” 

To his surprise she laid her hand on his arm, her 
whole manner changed. She was serious, appealing. 

‘‘ I want you to be generous to Gus, even in your 
thoughts,” she said. “ He has no friends and all his 
life has been unfortunate.” 

“ Is he — ^is he — ” began Race, and hesitated for a 
word. “ Is he at all feeble-minded? ” 

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Phosie. “But he hasn’t a 
good memory and he can’t study. He always seems to 
me to be groping in the dark, longing to understand life, 
but unable to see his way, undeveloped, childish without 
the bright promise of a child.” 

She had forgotten her companion for a second, and 


170 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


now she looked at him again and her gravity passed 
away. He had hardly noticed what she said, absorbed 
in studying her face. 

“ Why do you look at me so earnestly? ’’ said Phosie. 

No other girl could have asked that question, he 
thought, with such direct simplicity. For once in his 
life he could find no words to answer. His pulse quickened 
and he struggled with himself, knowing that his safety 
lay in silence. He could not speak to her at that minute 
without betraying his infatuation. 

She was apparently unconscious of his confusion, and 
played the accompaniment to a little tune running in 
her head on the closed doors of the cab. She had taken 
off one glove and he noticed the curious ring of turquoise 
hearts. Phosie, accustomed to wearing it, did not 
suspect his pang of jealousy, but the tense silence which 
had fallen between them suddenly struck her as very 
amusing. 

Miss Sapio had described Walter as “ singularly 
fascinating,” and she wondered whether all singularly 
fascinating young men glared at a girl without speaking 
for minutes at a stretch. She really could see no occasion 
for such solemnity. 

The cab stopped and she gave a little gasp of relief. 
Walter instantly returned to his usual manner. She 
hardly touched his hand in stepping out, but their 
eyes met in a swift flash of mirthful understanding. 

Gus, who had been in the upper circle at the Para- 
mount, was waiting for them in the little drawing- 
room. 

‘"Fine!” exclaimed Gus, squeezing Phosie’s hand. 
“ Fine!” 

He could say no more, but he repeated “ Fine! ” at 
intervals during the evening. 

It was over an hour before Miss Sapio, accompanied 
by Hewett Addison, returned from the theatre, but Race 
and Phosie chattered without ceasing the whole of the 


A TRIAL TURN- AND AFTER 17 1 

time. Their talk was the lightest of the light and be- 
wildered Gus. After a few weak attempts to join in, 
only to find himself several topics behind, he gave it up 
and passed the time in slow, solemn perusal of a comic 
paper. 

Miss Sapio, when she reached home in a state of 
bubbling excitement, made Phosie describe every in- 
cident of the evening, having found Addison a poor re- 
porter of interesting details. 

Mr Quizzical Quilter, arriving when supper was in 
full swing, added greatly to the hilarity of the party. 
He admired Phosie more than ever, and expressed it, 
according to his usual habit with ladies, by expressive 
winks or grotesque grimaces whenever she looked in his 
direction. 

Walter Race was inclined to resent, on the girl’s 
account, these attentions, but Phosie flattered the old 
gentleman, and even liked him, out of sheer good-temper 
and friendliness to all men. She preferred Quizzy when 
he was sensible and told amusing little anecdotes about 
his grandchildren, but she always treated him with pretty 
consideration. 

It was past midnight before Miss Sapio bade her 
guests good-night. She accompanied them to the 
hall door. 

Hewett Addison, who lived at that time only a couple 
of streets away, offered to take Quizzy home, for that 
veteran, when he felt the cold night air, was seized with 
a violent fit of coughing and seemed to shrivel up in his 
big check ulster, as if he had been touched by the wand 
of a spiteful magician. 

Little Gus echoed the cough. Phosie looked at him 
anxiously, and, by great good fortune, saw an empty 
cab meandering along in the distance. The young man 
whistled, the driver raised his whip in answering signal, 
and clattered down the road to the house. 

Gus scrambled into the cab. Phosie put her foot upon 


172 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


the step to follow him, when she felt the light touch of 
Race’s hand on her arm, and she heard him say, quickly 
and softly: 

“ Will you walk? ” 

She looked at him in surprise, one foot still on the 
pavement. 

It was a beautiful night, clear and starry. 

Phosie answered his question with a little nod, and 
bent forward to speak to Gus, while Race told Miss Sapio 
of their intention. 

Miss Sapio only laughed, quite content for her friends 
to be as unconventional as herself. 

Phosie was embraced again, and Walter enjoined to 
take “ jolly good care of her.” 

The cab rattled away. Addison and Quizzy slowly 
departed in the opposite direction. Miss Sapio went in, 
slamming the door behind her. 

Euphrosyne and Walter were alone. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE STARRY NIGHT 

“ '" I "HE whole world is asleep/' said Walter Race. 

J. “ It is the hour of dreams! ” said Phosie. 

It is days and days since I saw you dancing in the 
theatre.” 

“ Why do you say that? ” 

“ Because I hate to think of it.” 

' You were not pleased with my success? ” 

“ On the contrary, I was delighted with your success. 
But it all seems hollow, useless, ugly compared with this ! 
The flaming lights, the noise, the smoky air! I feel as 
if I had seen a bright bird beating its wings in a gaudy 
cage, or a fresh flower drooping in the fumes of gas. 
Now the bird is free and the flower blooms.” 

They had turned out of the street where Miss Sapio 
lived into a wider road, with a row of trees on either side, 
like great sentinels shaking their lofty spears of bare 
forked branches. The nipping air was still, and the 
heavens were strewn with stars. 

All the beauty, all the mystery of night was wrapped 
about them. 

“ Do you know the air is full of dreams? ” she asked, 
smiling up into his face. 

He shook his head and drew her a little closer to his 
side. 

I can see them,” said Phosie. “ Beautiful, secret 
dreams. They swim on the waves of the wind, over us, 
beside us, and through us as we walk. Some of them 

173 


174 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


have travelled from far, far distant lands. Some of 
them are dreams of the past, like faded pictures in a 
haunted house. Some of them fly on airy wings, or 
march like soldiers with a steady tramp. Some of them 
are only bunches of flowers, or snatches of song, or the 
echoes of a well-remembered voice — 

She stopped abruptly, half-ashamed of her fanciful 
mood. 

There was no sound but their own footsteps. He 
lifted her hand to his lips. It returned lightly, con- 
fidently, to the shelter of his arm. 

“ How long have we known each other? he said. 

“ Three days,” said Phosie. 

‘No, no! It is three years — thirty years — since the 
world began,” he murmured. 

“ Then I must be very old,” said Phosie. 

She drew her hand quickly from his arm, glanced over 
her shoulder to make sure they were alone, and began 
to dance down the street in front of him, while her 
laughter rang out like a peal of silver bells. 

Walter, after one minute of surprise, leapt forward, 
caught her round the waist and joined in the dance. 

They whirled into the middle of the road. It was hard 
and shppery beneath their feet, a perfect floor! Walter 
had danced at many balls, but never with such abandon. 
He held her for the first time in his arms, but she was so 
light and the swing of the waltz so rhythmical, that even 
the sense of touch seemed evanescent; she was so near, 
but so far, from his wildly-beating heart. 

He looked into her eyes and a wave of her hair touched 
his cheek. She lifted her hand from his shoulder to push 
it behind her ear, and he felt as if she had half escaped 
— only the tips of her fingers in his, only his light clasp 
round her waist. Her hand returned, he swung her 
off her little feet, but she hardly noticed it. He could 
have danced for an hour in the vigour of his strength. 
He realised that he had never danced before. 


THE STARRY NIGHT 


175 


It was Phosie who stopped, as suddenly as she had 
begun, made him a demure little curtsey, and returned 
to the pavement as calmly as if it were a general custom 
for young ladies and gentlemen to waltz down the middle 
of London roads together at two o’clock in the morning. 

They walked on slowly, without saying a word about 
the dance, winding their way through a lab5n:inth of 
streets. The same gentle thought, after a while, occurred 
to them both. 

“ I think we are strolling over the meadows in mid- 
July,” said Walter. 

“ I can feel the soft grass under my feet! ” exclaimed 
Phosie. 

“ Tiny feet! Look how the daisies underneath them 
dip and rise again,” he answered. 

“ Just now I trod on a piece of wild thyme, did you 
smell the sweet perfume? ” she asked. 

“Yes. Where did you gather the honeysuckle and 
meadowsweet? It makes a lovely wreath on your 
sunny hair.” 

“ Do you think so? Here’s a corn-flower for your 
buttonhole.” 

“ Will you put it in for me? ” 

“No, that old shepherd driving his flock is staring 
at us.” 

There was silence while the old shepherd, who was 
wearing the uniform of a policeman, passed them by. 

“ Listen! Can you hear the skylarks and the wood- 
pigeons in that little copse of beeches and willows, 
Phosie? ” 

“ Of course I can hear them.” 

Her tone of conviction broke the spell. 

“ I believe you can! ” exclaimed Walter. 

“ But I have never lived in the country,” she replied. 
“ I’m a London sparrow, you know, chirping about on 
the roofs and in the gutters. I’ve never seen the sea, 
and I can never afford to go out of town.” 


176 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

“ Dear little girl — ^poor little child — fairy — moon- 
beam! ” 

She raised her eyes at the sound of his caressing voice. 
He was looking at her with an expression she had never 
seen on his face before. 

Her words had moved him to a new tenderness. He 
thought of her youth and simplicity, and he was suddenly 
glad to have her alone, not to flatter and influence her 
pliant nature, but to win her confidence, to deserve her 
sweet trust. 

He forgot his joy in the dance. Wild as it had been, 
it was nothing to this minute of perfect sympathy. 
Their hands met, gently, freely, each was clasped in 
each. Their hearts were exalted in the starry night. 
The swift love of their youth was touched to fine issues. 

Strains of unheard music stirred their inner sense 
of hearing. Soft colours gathered and dissolved to their 
inner sense of vision. The man’s spirit broke the veil 
of an aimless life which hung about it like a lurid mist, 
and he was conscious of one of those strange, unfathom- 
able waves of emotion, as fleeting as they are rare, in 
which the love of self — desire, passion — is merged in the 
greater love of the Infinite. 

Illumination flashes into the soul, and it sees, in less 
time than a heart-beat, that the most tender human 
ties, the most inspired human work, the most glorious 
human victories, but reflect the attributes of the Creator 
of them all. 

Walter Race, when this rare minute of spiritual light 
had flown as quickly as it came, looked at Euphrosyne 
with the half-admiring, half-amused earnestness which 
she already knew so well. 

Having always flattered himself on a thorough know- 
ledge of his own character, he was trying to solve the 
problem of her fascination. 

He knew, having proved it a hundred times, that he 
was a man of self-control, not imprudent, scornful of 


THE STARRY NIGHT 


177 


sentimentality, no longer swayed by boyish impulse, but 
yet — but yet — ^he intended to marry this girl. Marry 
her! Marry her for the sake of a charm which, he told 
himself, was probably half illusion, for the sake of a gay 
laugh, for the sake of a pretty face. 

He wished he had never seen the little sparkling 
jewel, but having seen it, he was willing to pay any price 
to call it his own. 

Such thoughts as these, but less definitely conceived, 
flitted through Walter’s mind in the reaction from his 
minute of rapture. 

He talked to Phosie as a lover talks, for his mind was 
made up and there was no need for concealment. Radiant 
words of a starry night! They would lose their lustre 
in repetition, but Phosie cherished them in her heart — 
never repeated, never forgotten — through all the changing 
years of her life. 

She parted from him at the door of her house. 

“ Good-night— Walter.” 

” Good-night, angel.” 

He bent and kissed her hands again and again, held 
them for a second against his breast, and let her go. 
She softly turned the key in the lock, looked over her 
shoulder, and then the black door closed behind her. 

Walter Race, seized with an impulse of divine mad- 
ness he was never to know again, turned his back on the 
narrow streets and silent houses. 

He could not go home. His walls would have seemed 
like a prison. Sleep. was impossible. He had never 
felt so keen, so virile, so strong. 

On and on he tramped, untired and untiring, until the 
night was fading into dawn. The stars went out, and 
the pale, silvery-pink light of a new day stole like a mist 
through the grey clouds in the east. 

Walter stopped at last, looking towards the city, 
on a windy stretch of open country. 

He felt like a man who had just awakened from a 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


178 

vivid dream, but shudders to find himself a little cold, 
a little weary, lying on the bare ground. 

“ Euphrosyne! ” he murmured, as if she were there to 
hear. “Euphrosyne, my heart!” 

Then he smiled at himself with a shake of his big 
shoulders. 

“ Oh, Phosie! ” he said, “ what a fool a woman can 
make of a man — Phosie! Phosie! ” 


CHAPTER XX 


PHOSIE IN LOVE 

I F Walter Race thought that the course of his true love 
would run smooth he was disappointed, but not 
unpleasantly. 

Phosie, under the stars, in the first enchantment of his 
society, was a very different Phosie on the following 
day. 

She rose late, breakfasted with Little Gus, and met 
Hewett Addison by appointment after his interview 
with the manager of the Paramount. 

When Mr Race asked for Miss Moore at No. 5 Belton 
Terrace, with the intention of taking her out to lunch, 
he was coolly informed she was not at home. Would he 
like to see Mr Stewart-Cromwell instead? 

He had not the least desire in the world to see Little 
Gus, but he said it would be a great pleasure, and made 
his way to the top floor of the house. 

The little sitting-room, with its gay chintz cushions 
and green painted wooden chairs, looked neat and fresh. 
Walter observed that the bouquet he had sent to Phosie 
had been carefully taken to pieces, the flowers un wired, 
and arranged in vases on the mantelpiece and side- 
board. 

Mr Stewart-Cromwell, sipping a large glass of lemonade, 
was reading the newspaper by the fire. He greeted the 
visitor nervously, keeping his eyes fixed on Walter’s 
boots, obviously ill at ease. 

“ I hope you’ll excuse it. It’s because of my cold 
179 


i8o A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

you see,” said Gus. “ Phosie made it for me before she 
went out.” 

Race, after a puzzled second, understood that he was 
apologizing for the glass of lemonade. 

“ I believe lemon is very good for the throat,” he 
replied. 

'' Yes, it makes it meller, you see,” said Gus. 

“ Do you know when Miss Moore will return? ” asked 
Walter. 

“ I dunno. She won’t be very late. She’ll come 
home to her tea. She knows I shall expect her home to 
her tea.” 

Little Gus’s eyes, knowing every button and line on 
the boots, wandered to his visitor’s waistcoat. He 
wondered why Mr Race, evidently the possessor of 
wealth, did not go in for “ fancy vests,” and compared 
his clothes unfavourably with those of Mr Quizzical 
Quilter. 

“ I shall be in this part of the world at about four 
o’clock,” said Walter, as if he had just remembered an 
important engagement. “ Perhaps I could see Miss 
Moore for a few minutes then? ” 

Perhaps you’d like to leave a message,” said Gus. 
Will you give her these flowers, Mr Stewart-Crom- 
well, and say that I hope to call? ” 

Gus took the bunch of carnations, concealed in white 
paper, awkwardly enough, but the first smile Walter 
had seen came into his face. 

” She’ll be very much obliged to you. I’m sure,” he 
said. “ She isn’t used to getting flowers like these from 
a shop. We always buy ours in the street. Phosie 
gets ’em from a poor woman she knows whose husband 
lost his leg in a gale on the Atlantic Ocean.” 

Do you mean that his leg was blown off? ” asked 
Walter, smiling. 

“ I dunno how it happened,” said Gus, shaking his 
head doubtfully. “ Phosie could tell you all about 


PHOSIE IN LOVE 


i8i 


it. She’s made friends with ’em, and we have the 
children here to tea every Saturday, and play games. 
Phosie says she likes ’em.” 

” How kind she is! How generous!” exclaimed 
Walter. 

Gus, running his eyes up the buttons of the waistcoat, 
gave him a curious glance. 

“You don’t know much about Phosie, do you? ” he 
asked. 

“Enough to appreciate and admire her!” was the 
quick retort. 

“ Ah! ” said Little Gus. 

There did not seem anything else to say, so Walter, 
after attempting a little conversation about the perform- 
ance at the Paramount and the news in the morning 
paper, took his departure. 

He was not angry with Phosie, for she had made no 
promise to be at home, but her absence had given him a 
shock of surprise. 

After determining to forget all about her until it was 
time to return to Belton Terrace in the afternoon, he 
went to see Miss Sapio, quite expecting to find Miss 
Moore at her house. Again he was doomed to disap- 
pointment. Miss Sapio and her chow had gone out 
with a gentleman in a motor, and the servant did not 
expect her back before dinner. 

The gentleman was not Mr Hewett Addison. Miss 
Moore had not called. Walter Race, annoyed with 
himself for his curiosity, was obliged to go to his chambers 
and spend his time in smoking, trying to read, and 
wondering whether Phosie and the playwright were 
lunching together. 

Four o’clock foimd him at Belton Terrace. Phosie 
greeted him as if the starry night was so far in the 
past that she only remembered it faintly by an effort. 

There was not a touch of sentiment, much less affec- 
tion, betrayed in her manner. She absolutely refused 


i 82 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


to be serious. If she had not looked so pretty, with 
one of his carnations in her hair, Walter would have been 
in despair. 

He had expected to find her subdued, shy, grateful 
for his admiration and responsive to his moods. Her 
high spirits baffled him. He was unprepared for an 
encounter of wits, and failed to hold his own. He even 
compared himself unfavourably with Gus. Gus, for 
all his stupidity, seemed to plesise Phosie better. 

She had good news to tell of the Paramount. Hewett 
Addison hoped to book a long engagement. The arrange- 
ments were still incomplete, but she was confident of his 
success. 

After tea they sat round the fire, but there was no 
repetition of the soft speeches, the long, silent glances 
of the first evening Walter had spent in Belton Terrace. 

Phosie kept her bright eyes fixed on her needlework, 
and suggested, with the sweetness of duplicity, that 
Little Gus should read aloud. 

Now, if there was one thing more than another 
which Walter hated it was reading aloud. He was 
obliged to dissemble, but Phosie suspected the truth. A 
desire to test his patience, coupled with an even stronger 
desire to tease him beyond endurance, made her persist 
in her plan. 

Little Gus was delighted. He was in the middle of a 
particularly long, instructive book of adventures. Phosie 
gravely sketched the outline of the story to Walter, 
assured him that Gus could read for hours at a stretch 
without fatigue, and demurely devoted herself to her 
work. 

Mr Stewart-Cromwell was a slow, conscientious reader. 
Words which he could not pronounce, or failed to under- 
stand, he was in the habit of spelling several times under 
his breath, before dismissing them with a sigh of “ I 
dunno what that means, but never mind.'’ 

Page after page was turned, chapter after chapter 


PHOSIE IN LOVE 


183 

dropped behind. Gus’s voice, always feeble, grew into 
a sing-song of meaningless words. Walter had only 
one clear idea of the story, and that was not the truth, 
for he considered it the dullest work ever penned. 

Phosie dared not lift her eyes. Occasionally she 
helped Gus over a difficulty, but always in a meek, low 
voice unlike her own. Of course she knew that Walter 
was looking at her, but his ardent gaze, now and again 
crossed by an impatience he found it hard to sup- 
press, only added to her mischievous enjoyment of the 
situation. 

Her guest sighed, changed his position, took out his 
watch, glared at Gus; but Phosie only stitched away, 
apparently absorbed in the uninteresting book. 

Just after Walter had decided that Gus intended to 
go on reading all night he closed the volume and laid it 
on the table. 

“ My voice isn’t as meller as I could wish,” he said. 
“ But perhaps I can give you a bit more later on.” 

“Thank you!” exclaimed Walter. 

“Is it really getting late? ” said Phosie, dropping 
her work on her knee. “ What is the time, Mr 
Race? ” 

He held up his watch for her to see. 

‘ Impossible! ” she cried. “ How the time has flown, 
hasn’t it? Must you really go at nine o’clock, Mr Race? 
Don’t forget that important engagement.” 

Walter cursed the touch of temper which had made 
him invent an important engagement when Phosie had 
not given him as warm a welcome as he thought he 
deserved. 

“ I’ll give it up,” he said. 

“ Oh, I wouldn’t allow you to do such a thing,” she 
answered. “Gus dear, get Mr Race’s coat, will you? 
We mustn’t be so selfish as to detain him any longer.” 

Gus went out of the room, leaving them alone for a 
few seconds. 


184 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


You provoking little witch! What do you de- 
serve? ” said Walter. 

She assumed an expression of innocent surprise. 

“ I haven't had a word with you, not a single satis- 
factory word, and now you’re driving me away.” 

” I am not responsible for your previous engagements,” 
said Phosie. 

” I have no previous engagement! ” he exclaimed in 
despair. 

Oh, Mr Race, that can’t be true. It’s very kind of 
you to offer to stop, but I couldn’t think of accepting 
such a sacrifice.” 

” Don’t be so tsmtalizing. Be serious for a minute,” 
he pleaded. 

” No, I can’t,” said Phosie. '' I am much too happy 
and pleased with myself, and you, and everybody 
else.” 

Who would willingly be included in a universal 
embrace, shared by all? ” said Walter. “Not I! ” 

“ Why not wait till you are asked? ” said Phosie, with 
a toss of her head. 

Then Little Gus re-appeared with the coat, and he 
was obliged to go, fully determined not to call again for 
several weeks. 

Before he reached his chambers in Plantagenet Court, 
however, the words “ several days ” were substituted 
for several weeks. If he was mistaken in the girl, if she 
were nothing more than a heartless coquette, the sooner 
he found it out the better. 

On this account he wrote to Phosie before he slept 
that night, feeling that it was prudent to know the worst 
as quickly as possible, although he was obliged to ac- 
knowledge that if she failed him now all the pleasure 
and brightness, for the time being, would go out of his 
life. 

Phosie answered the letter briefly. She was going to 
tea with Miss Sapio the day after to-morrow. Perhaps 


PHOSIE IN LOVE 185 

he would be there? Of course he was there, but so were 
Hewett Addison and half a dozen other people. 

There was no opportunity for private talk, and Walter, 
whose notions of teasing were founded on the recollection 
of horse-play with his brothers, did not understand the 
gentle, subtle methods of Euphrosyne. 

He contrived to walk home with her, grateful for the 
absence of Little Gus. Her mood changed. She was 
sweet and conciliating, but when they reached Belton 
Terrace he was not invited to enter the house. 

“ Is Mr Stewart-Cromwell going to read to you all the 
evening? asked Walter, on the step. 

Phosie tried not to laugh, but failed. He shook his 
head at her reproachfully. 

“ Why do you delight in torturing me, Phosie? ” 

“ I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, dear, good, un- 
reasonable Mr Race.” 

” Then dine with me to-night. Do! Why not? 
We’ll go to the Nonpareil. It’s my favourite place, and 
I’m sure you’U like it. Will you? Don’t condemn me 
to a long night of misery. Be kind.” 

” Are you really miserable without me? ” asked Phosie, 
ingenuously, 

” Utterly. Unspeakably,” he replied. 

” That’s a great pity, for you see we can’t always — ” 

Phosie left her sentence unfinished, blushing at the 
words she had nearly spoken. He caught them up. 

” We can’t always be together? Is that what you 
were going to say? Is it? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. I’ve forgotten. Let me go! ” 
she said. 

” Must I wait for you in the street? Won’t you let 
me come in? ” asked Walter. 

” But I haven’t made up my mind whether I will 
accept your invitation,” said Phosie, knitting her brows 
thoughtfully. 

“ I think you will.” 


i86 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


So do I. You may come in.” 

They dined together. The more he saw of Phosie 
the more she bewildered him. At times he was jubilant, 
when her melting eyes and gentleness seemed to respond 
to his love; but then again, at the very minute of tri- 
umph, she would elude his pursuit, laughing at his dismay 
and giving him, in a lesser degree, the impression she had 
given Jules Revell of her detachment, her power of stand- 
ing aloof from her feUow-beings. 

One afternoon, after three weeks of mingled happiness 
and despair, Walter Race persuaded Phosie to go for a 
drive with him to Richmond Park. He had made up 
his mind to challenge Fate. Suspense was unbearable. 
He was not the man to dally any longer with young love 
for all his dalliance with old Time. 

Phosie, sitting beside him in the dogcart in her old 
black jacket with the red muffler round her neck, looked 
a very little girl indeed, flushed with the wind and 
evidently enjoying herself immensely. 

It was a clear, frosty day. The Park, as they drove 
through the gates, looked bare and desolate, with its 
long stretches of faded grass and distant clusters of 
sombre trees. 

Phosie put up her hand to hold her hat, for a sudden 
gust of wind had tried to snatch it away in passing. 
Turning sharply down a side road, where there was not 
a soul to be seen, Walter drew in his horse and turned 
to his companion. 

They had been unusually silent all the afternoon, 
hardly exchanging a dozen words since driving out of 
Belton Terrace. 

Her eyes were raised to his. The words he longed to 
speak changed to a commonplace question. 

“ Are you cold, Phosie? ” 

“No, not a bit.” 

“ Let me wrap the rug more closely round you, dear. 
What a blustering wind! ” 


PHOSIE IN LOVE 


187 


I love the wind.” 

He put his whip in the socket, twisted the reins lightly 
round it, and was free to help her with both hands. 

“ Will the horse run away? ” she asked. 

‘ Oh, no, he’d stand for an hour,” said Walter. “ I 
don’t think a woollen scarf is nearly thick enough for a 
day like this,” he added. “ You ought to wear furs. 
When are you going to let me give you some furs? ” 

“ Silver fox or Russian sables? ” asked Phosie. 

“ Whatever you like.” 

“ I think I should prefer bunny skins, they are so very 
fashionable in Belton Terrace.” 

“ I’m serious, Phosie.” 

” So am I.” 

“ Then give me permission to buy you some furs.” 

“ No, thank you.” 

Oh, why not? ” 

She played with a brown leaf that had fallen on her 
shoulder from the branches overhead, smiling a little 
secret smile of happy thought. 

“ Shall I tell you the reason, honestly? ” with a quick 
side-glance. 

‘ Yes.” 

“ Well, I don’t want to spoil the days we have spent 
together with the reality of presents,” she said. “ Per- 
haps it will strike you as absurd, but it never gives me 
great pleasure to receive gifts from the people I really like. 
Not flowers! ” with a touch to the violets he had given 
her that morning. “ I am speaking of other things. 
However beautiful they are, or expensive, I should only 
value them for the kind thought which prompted the 
giving, and I know I shall have your kind thoughts, 
whatever happens, without any presents as an assur- 
ance.” 

“My kind thoughts!” he repeated. “You quaint 
little child! My kind thoughts! ” 

“ Well? ” said Phosie. 


i88 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Walter Race, not with the rare emotion of the starry 
night, but with the tenderness and strength of a man 
whose heart is set on attainment, suddenly spoke the 
words he had made up his mind to speak. Irrevocable 
words! 

Phosie listened in silence, looking at him askance, 
with the expression of a startled, captivated, shy creature 
of the woods. Her breath came quickly between her 
slightly parted lips. The wind blew her hair about her 
face, but she remained immovable, neither yielding nor 
shrinking away from the clasp of his arms. 

Speak to me! ” he entreated. “ Let me hear your 
voice, Phosie! No man ever loved as I love you. How 
beautiful you are! How perfect! ” 

Still she did not move. He bent closer. 

“How perfect!” he said again. “Perfect eyes! 
Perfect lips! Angel! May I kiss you — Phosie — 
once — ” 

“ Yes,” said Phosie, softly. 

“ Do you love me? Do you love me? ” he whis- 
pered. 

She leaned against him with the first sigh he had ever 
heard her give. 

“You will marry me, Phosie? You will? You 
will? ” 

“ Yes.” 

Love laughs at locksmiths, and the wind laughs at 
love. At the very second when she answered him and 
he drew her hands round his neck, the branches over 
their heads rustled and dipped, withered leaves danced 
in the air, and Phosie’s hat blew away. 

Walter jmnped out of his seat and gave chase. What 
a climax to his impassioned declaration! The ab- 
surdity of it did not strike him, and had he succeeded 
in capturing the hat at once it might have been possible 
to return to his seat and continue the scene as if nothing 
had happened. 


PHOSIE IN LOVE 


189 


But the sportive wind gave him no such opportunity, 
for the hat whirled merrily along the road, now stopping 
for a second, now going on again, as if it were attached 
to an invisible string twitched by mischievous fingers. 

Phosie stood up in the dogcart, holding on to the back 
of the seat, and greeted his wild, ineffectual clutches 
with shrieks of laughter. 

Walter, who was beginning to feel both savage and 
ridiculous, looked over his shoulder and joined in, rushed 
at the hat again fiercely, caught it up, and waved it over 
his head. 

Phosie sat down again panting, her hand on her 
side. 

“ Do you know what I was wishing? ” she asked as he 
came up. 

“No, you foolish darling! 

“ Oh, I did wish your own hat would blow away at the 
same time.” 

“ That was very wicked of you! ” 

He sprang into the dogcart and brushed the dust 
from his capture with his handkerchief. 

“ I shall never forgive it,” he said. “ It spoilt our 
minute of ecstasy.” 

“ Suppose we forget all that nonsense we were talking 
about,” suggested Phosie, as she straightened the 
brim. 

“No! No!” said Walter. “You and I are going 
to be married. It’s settled. It’s inevitable, as our 
friend Gus says. It’s inevitable, isn’t it, dearest? 
Tell me it is, just the way you told me before. Do, 
Phosie! ” 

But Phosie was not to be wooed back to gravity. 

Walter was happy, for the time absolutely happy, 
but he had to be content with her changeful moods. 
She insisted on telling him all her faults, a list which did 
credit to her powers of invention, and made him take 
her back to Belton Terrace in time for tea with Little Gus. 


190 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


There was no reading aloud that night, but Miss 
Lily Parlow had been invited to supper, and they played 
cards. 

Walter Race, charmed with Phosie whatever she did, 
found it hard to believe that she had promised to marry 
him. She was much more affectionate to Gus, much 
more attentive to Lily Parlow. 

She refused to read the entreaty in his eyes, and 
ignored the opportunities he made for the exchange of 
a private word or a touch of the hand. 

She smiled at him, when the time came to part, as un- 
concernedly as if he were a mere stranger, and went 
out of the room with her friend, leaving Walter with 
Little Gus. 

Gus lighted the visitors downstairs with a candle, 
Phosie leaning over the banisters to watch them go. 

Walter had reached the bottom of the first flight when 
he heard her softly call his name. He turned and saw 
her beckoning. 

“ Wait for me, I shall be down in a minute,” he said 
to Gus, and bounded up the stairs. 

Phosie took a step to meet him. She put her hands 
on his shoulders, looking into his eyes. 

All the mockery and mischief had passed out of her 
face. 

“Dearest love!” she whispered, and drawing his 
head down she kissed his cheek and pressed her own 
against it. 


CHAPTER XXI 


MR AND MRS WALTER RACE 

T he Nonpareil was crowded. So crowded, in fact, 
that an original patron, seeking for a quiet corner 
in which to eat one of the grilled steaks famous at the 
little restaurant, was moved to express his contempt for 
modern conditions to the head waiter. 

This used to be a quiet, decent place, but now it’s a 
perfect bear garden,” he said. 

The head waiter, who knew the old patron — it was 
Wainwright, the well-known painter — shot his trained 
eyes over the heads of the seated diners. 

“ I think I can find you a corner, sir, if you’ll follow 
me,” he said, leading the way to a little table in the 
shelter of an alcove. 

“ This will do,” said Wainwright, with a glance at the 
other occupant of the little table. 

He sat down and ordered his grilled steak. The other 
man was peeling an orange, and Wainwright noticed his 
hands were long and bony, yellow-skinned and well- 
manicured, as different from his own square, strong, but 
soft hands as the man’s wiry figure and restless dark eyes 
were different from Wainwright’s breadth, solidity and 
quiet expression. 

It was Mr Carl Stratton, the friend of Walter Race, 
who faced the artist. He also had patronised the Non- 
pareil before the days of its great popularity, but its 
evolution from a quiet little eating-house to a fashion- 
able restaurant met with his unqualified approval. 

The bustle and noise; the sound of talk and laughter 
191 


192 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


which drowned the efforts of the small string band in 
the distance; the number of ladies at the tables; the 
mingled perfumes of tobacco smoke, coffee and spicy 
dishes — all these things appealed to him, distracted his 
thoughts from his own affairs. 

The artist, absorbed in his own reflections, had for- 
gotten all about him, when a well-known voice, greeting 
them both, suddenly broke in upon his reverie. 

“Carl Stratton and Tom Wainwright! '' exclaimed 
the voice, “ How are you both? ” 

It was Miss Sapio, who was faking a week’s holiday 
from the cast of Hewett Addison’s popular comedy. 

Both of the men rose to their feet. Miss Sapio, who 
seemed to regard their happening to dine at the same 
table as the most extraordinary coincidence that had 
ever taken place, made them known to each other. 

“ Can you gentlemen make room for me? ” she asked, 
sweeping her trailing draperies out of the way of the pass- 
ing waiters. “ I’m all on my little lonesome.” 

It was a wonderful thing to see Miss Sapio, with her 
yards of train and voluminous cloak, squeeze into a 
chair between the table and wall, but she only laughed 
good-naturedly, freeing Wainwright from the floating 
ends of lace and chiffon which had caught him in passing. 

“ Isn’t it warm? ” said Miss Sapio, fanning herself with 
energy. “You know it’s awfully stuffy in here, my 
friend,” she added familiarly to the waiter. 

“ Where’s Hewett Addison? ” asked Wainwright. 

“ He’s gone into the country to finish his new play,” 
said Miss Sapio. “You know what an odd fellow he is. 
He says he can’t manage a comedy unless he’s thoroughly 
miserable, so he took himself off to a desolate little village 
in Cornwall. Fancy at this time of the year! It would 
drive me melancholy mad.” 

“ What news of other mutual friends? ” said Stratton. 
“Have you seen anything of the Langleys lately, 
or Wilfrid Keble? Poor old Billy Hackett has made 


MR AND MRS WALTER RACE 193 

a mess of things, hasn’t he? What do you think of the 
Gordon affair? Heard any news of Walter Race and the 
bride? ” 

“ My dear man, one thing at a time! ” cried Miss Sapio, 
and answered the last question first. 

“ I’ve had several letters from Phosie. Do you know 
they’ve come home? ” 

“Have they really!” exclaimed Wainwright. “I 
thought they were going to honeymoon for the rest of 
their natural lives.” 

“ They’ve only been married a couple of months,” 
protested Miss Sapio. 

“ But that’s a very long time according to the methods 
of Mr and Mrs Walter Race,” observed Stratton. “ They 
do everything in a hurry. How long were they engaged? 
A week, was it, or less? ” 

“ I really can’t say,” answered Miss Sapio. “You 
know what a close card Wally is, and I couldn’t get any 
sense out of her. I never saw a girl so ridiculously in 
love. Silly child! WeU, I hope she likes him now 
she’s got him.” 

With this wish, accompanied by a little sigh, she turned 
her attention to her dinner. 

“ Has she given up the stage? ” asked Stratton. 

“Good gracious, no!” said Miss Sapio. “You re- 
member that trial turn she got at the Paramount? ” 

“ Yes, I was there.” 

“ Well, Hughie Addison got them to book her for three 
weeks’ engagement this month. She opens next Mon- 
day. Hughie couldn’t manage anything sooner, so my 
young lady seized the opportunity to get married. 
They’ve been to France and Italy.” 

“ I have never seen her,” said Wainwright. 

“ Oh, she’s a good little soul,” said Miss Sapio, filling 
in her spare time between the courses with olives and 
salted almonds. 

Carl Stratton, whose shifty eyes had been held for a 
13 


194 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


few minutes by the glamour of Miss Sapio’s beautiful 
dress, suddenly looked across the room to the little 
stream of people entering and leaving the restaurant. 

“Talk of angels! ” he exclaimed, interrupting Wain- 
wright in the middle of a question. “ Isn’t that Mrs 
Walter Race in the fawn-coloured cloak? Yes, it is! 
She’s with Race, of course. Doesn’t look amiable, 
does he? ” 

Perhaps Tom Wainwright, the unobtrusive, quiet 
artist in a comer, was the only man in all that crowd 
who had the eyes to see the true beauty of Euphrosyne, 
although many heads were turned as she passed, 
and there was a lull in the talk at the tables near her. 

Her fawn-coloured cloak himg loosely on her shoulders, 
fully displa3dng the shimmer of the white satin dress 
that fitted her slender figure like a glove, but ended in 
a long fluffy train. She was holding a bunch of roses, 
carelessly tied together, and a single red rose was fastened 
in her hair. Many of the women thought that this was 
old-fashioned, spoiling the effect of the Parisienne whole, 
but Phosie’s mirror had told her a different tale. She 
carried her long white gloves in her hands and several 
rings sparkled on her fingers. 

“ What a pretty girl! ” said one man to another. 

“Look at her companion!” corrected the ladies. 
Mr Stratton had tmly said that Walter Race looked 
far from amiable, but given straight features, youth and 
height, very few people trouble themselves over ex- 
pression. He attracted as much admiring attention 
as his wife. 

They were shown to a table far from Miss Sapio and 
her friends. 

Phosie, pleased with the novelty of the scene, for 
the Nonpariel was very different from the continental 
hotels to which she had grown accustomed during 
the past two months, looked about her with happy, 
interested eyes. 


MR AND MRS WALTER RACE 195 

“ I feel just as if I were at the theatre,” she said, 
looking at Race as he took his seat opposite to her. 
” You’re like the hero of the play, Walter, and now I 
must find you a heroine.” 

Walter studied the menu, his brow clearing, while she 
hunted for her heroine. 

” There are several ladies who will do,” she said. 
” What do you think of the one in grey, on our 
right? ” 

” My dear child, you wouldn’t condemn me to make 
love to a girl with an upper lip like that, would 
you? ” 

” I didn’t notice it before,” said Phosie. “ I think 
she is very pretty all the same. Well, do you approve 
of the brunette with the gold bands in her hair? ” 

He glanced at the brunette. 

“ That inane smile would drive me crazy, even if her 
teeth were perfect.” 

“Is it inane? I only thought she looked so happy. 
What of the tall girl dressed in mauve? ” 

“ Worse and worse! ” exclaimed Race. “ Don’t you 
see that she is impossible? ” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

He hesitated over a definition of the tall girl’s im- 
possibility. 

“ She would be out of the question for a man to marry, 
and your hero has to marry your heroine. I mean, one 
couldn’t introduce her to one’s friends. Don’t you 
understand? No doubt she is a very estimable young 
woman, pretty too, but — ” 

“You mean she is not your equal? ” interrupted 
Phosie. “ She is not a lady.” 

Race finished his soup before he answered. 

“ That’s a very bald way of putting it,” then he said, 
“ but I suppose it is correct.” 

Phosie crumbled her bread, looking at the smoulder- 
ing, imprisoned fire of the diamond in her engagement 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


196 

ring. She was pondering over the many discoveries 
she had made of “ impossibilities ” — it was one of Race’s 
favourite words — since her marriage. 

“You will have to cast yourself as the heroine after 
all,” he said, glancing up from the wine list. 

Her momentary gravity was gone. She smiled at 
him across the table, her eyes suddenly flooded with the 
light of love 

All the happiness of the past two months, the new 
world he had shown her, flashed through her mind. He 
was still a wonderful stranger, a fairy knight. King 
Cophetua. 

“ Don’t you like playing the part of heroine? ” said 
Race, too lazy to change the subject. 

“ Am I worthy? Are you sure I, too, am not im- 
possible? ” she asked, speaking her thoughts before she 
could check them* 

“Foolish darling!” murmured her husband. 

He looked at her critically, but with evident approval, 
leaning back in his chair. He wished that his brothers 
could see her at that minute, for like many people who 
cannot agree with the members of their families, Walter 
was more anxious than he would confess to have their 
good opinion. 

He knew what they thought of his hasty marriage, 
for they had had no hesitation in telling him, but he 
longed to show that the unspeakable folly of it — to do 
him justice this was not his phrase, but his brother 
John’s — was not without its excuse. 

“ A penny for your thoughts,” said Phosie. 

“ I wish you woifldn’t say that,” replied Walter. 
“ It’s such a stupid, commonplace expression. 

“ I’m sorry! Won’t say it again,” said Phosie, 
hastily. “ I suppose it isn’t any better to say ‘ What 
price your thoughts,’ as I mustn’t mention a penny.” 

He could not help smiling. 

“ That sounds like our friend, Mr Quizzical Quilter. 


MR AND MRS WALTER RACE 197 

By the way, dear, if you happen to come across Quizzy 
don’t ask him to come to our place.” 

“ No? ” she queried in some surprise. * I thought 
you liked him and found him amusing.” 

I like him well enough, but not in my own house,” 
said Race. 

” I’ll remember ” said Phosie. 

There were so many things she had to remember. 

They were drinking their coffee before Miss Sapio, 
followed by Wainwright and Carl Stratton, swept down 
upon them. 

” My dearest children! ” she exclaimed, and Phosie 
felt instinctively that this greeting jarred upon her 
husband. ” How delighted I am to see you. Matri- 
mony agrees with you, Wally; you’re looking gloriously 
fit. As for my goosie-girl — 1 ” And she ended the 
sentence by kissing the bride on both cheeks. 

Tom Wainwright said little after he had shaken 
hands warmly with them both, but Carl Stratton con- 
trived to make Phosie very conscious of his presence. 
He talked about her first appearance at the Paramount, 
took the keenest interest in the places she had visited 
on her honeymoon, paid her compliments with voice 
and eyes, and bade her good-night at last with a reluct- 
ance which he was at no pains to conceal. 

Mr and Mrs Race were going to the theatre, and 
parted from their friends at the door of the Nonpareil. 

” I like Mr Wainwright,” said Phosie, in her decisive 
little way, directly they were alone, ” but I don’t like 
Mr Stratton.” 

” Then you’re not a good judge of character, my dear,” 
replied Race. ” Carl Stratton is one of the cleverest men 
I know.” 

” What is he? What does he do? ” she asked. 

” He’s a business man, connected with a good many 
City Companies — you wouldn’t understand about it,” 
he answered vaguely. 


198 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Mr Wainwright is an artist, isn’t he? ” 

“Yes, and very successful, but he’s not a man to make 
money, and he’s got a crowd of children to provide for. 
We must go to see the Wainwrights. His wife’s rather 
a trying person, but she’s really very kind and hospit- 
able.” 

“ All your friends are kind to me,” said Phosie. 

He laughed, and thought again of his brothers. 

At the end of the play, which Mrs Race would have 
enjoyed if Mr Race had not been so bored, he helped 
her into her cloak with an expression as fervent as if 
they had been tortured, instead of amused, for two 
hours. 

“ Thank God that’s over! ” he said. “ Shall we have 
supper somewhere, or go home? ” 

“ Let us go home,” she answered, eagerly. 

They were living in Walter Race’s chambers at the 
top of a high, old-fashioned house in Plantagenet Court, 
Savoy. The lower floors were let in offices, excepting 
the flat immediately below their own, which was occupied 
by two young men who shared, with the Races, the 
services of a capable housekeeper. 

The entrance to the house was dimly lighted, and 
there were nearly a hundred stairs to climb before reach- 
ing the top floor. 

Phosie ran lightly up, waiting at the door for her 
husband, who followed more slowly, fumbling for his 
latch-key. He switched on an electric light in the tiny 
hall and led the way into his study, where, according to 
instructions, the housekeeper had built up a glowing 
fire, which collapsed into flame and warmth when he 
stirred it vigorously. 

Phosie slipped off her cloak and knelt down on the 
hearthrug to warm her hands. Race, whistling an air 
from the musical comedy they had just seen, hung up 
his coat and hat, and tore open a couple of letters waiting 
for him on the table. 


MR AND MRS WALTER RACE 199 

“ Bills! he said, tossing them on to the writing- 
table. 

Then he lighted a cigarette and sat down by the 
fire, clasping his hands behind his head in perfect ease, 
while he looked at Phosie through half-closed 
eyelids. 

It was a small room with green walls and a green- 
tiled open hearth. The furniture was old and well 
chosen; there were many bookshelves filled with books; 
peacock blue velvet curtains, embroidered in gold, were 
drawn across the windows ; the door was hidden by a very 
handsome Japanese screen; the only pictures were a 
landscape by Wainwright of his beloved Yorkshire, a 
couple of Phil May’s original drawings, and a beautiful 
etching by William Strang. 

Three big bowls of lilies-of-the-vaUey filled the air 
with delicate perfume; the electric lights, shaded in 
green silk, looked like pale emeralds hanging on fine 
threads. The whole effect of the room was restful, 
soothing, luxurious. 

“ I can’t believe it, Phosie,” said Walter Race. 

She looked a question. 

“ I can’t believe that we are actually married, and that 
I’ve got you here all to myself. It’s like a daydream 
floating out of the rings of smoke. Are you real, 
eh?’ 

He put out his hand lazily for hers, and she laid it 
against her cheek and turned her lips to kiss it. 

Then she sat down at his feet, her soft dress billowing 
round her on the floor. The rose in her hair had dropped 
out of its right place, hanging down on her neck. Walter 
played with it while he talked. 

“ Are you real? ” he repeated. I’m horribly afraid 
you’ll vanish as quickly as you came, or I shall wake up, 
stiff and cold, by the dead fire to discover that it was all 
a dream — our long honeymoon — those days at Cannes 
among the roses — ” 


200 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


He laughed softly, and once more clasped his hands 
behind his head. 

“ I wonder why you married me? I wonder why you 
love me? ” said Phosie, leaning against his knee. 

“ Look in your glass, my darling.’' 

“ That can’t be the whole reason, even if it’s as good 
a one as you imagine,” she answered quickly. “ There 
are dozens of pretty girls in the world, far prettier than 
I am.” 

“ Yes — and no, Euphrosyne,” said Race. “ One 
falls in love with beauty for the sake of what it suggests 
and promises, although a man doesn’t think of that at 
the time.” 

” Then what does my beauty, if I’ve got any, suggest 
and promise? ” cried Phosie, sitting back on her heels 
laughing and blushing at her own question. 

He did not speak for a few seconds, then he answered 
in a tone of conviction with the one word: 

” Mirth! ” 

“ Is that all? ” said Phosie, opening her eyes. “ Did 
you only marry me to be amused? ” 

Walter burst out laughing. 

” It isn’t a very solemn, till-death-do-us-part kind of 
reason, is it, Phosie? I don’t think I should have 
dared to tell any other woman. But you! What are 
you made for but laughter and delight? Elf! Thistle- 
down! ” 

He suddenly threw away his end of cigarette and 
held out his arms. Phosie sat on the arm of his chair, 
and laid her cheek against his as gently as she had 
caressed his hand. Her touch was always light and 
soft. 

“Why did you fall in love with me?” he asked. 
“ That’s more to the purpose. Come, tell me! When a 
fairy marries a mortal, I think she ought to give an 
astonished world the reason.” 

To hear him speak in the old way for already the 


MR AND MRS WALTER RACE 201 


days of their brief engagement had slipped into a past 
that was luminous and strange, filled her with exquisite 
pleasure. 

“ I love you, humbly, deeply,” she murmured. “ You 
are so good to me. I love you, Walter, more and more 
every day.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


VACUOUS DAYS 

M r AUGUSTUS STEWART-CROMWELL was 
born to be unfortunate. 

His wedding present to Mr and Mrs Walter Race made 
Phosie’s husband groan and clutch his hair. It had 
attracted Gus in the window of a shop in Tottenham 
Court Road and cost him more money than he could 
afford to spend. This present was a large vase of un- 
gainly shape, with a negro boy eating a slice of melon 
on one side of the bowl and a kitten on the other. He 
was never tired of admiring the life-like pose of the kitten. 

Little Gus was always nervous in the company of 
Walter Race, but anxious to serve him and very con- 
scious of his superiority. 

Mr Faraday, the lawyer, had succeeded in finding 
employment for Mr Stewart-Cromwell — Phosie im- 
pressed upon Gus, with difficulty, the necessity of using 
a surname — but it was done for the sole purpose of 
obliging Mrs Race. She had won Mr Faraday’s heart, 
and he took Little Gus into his office. 

Gus’s exact position is hard to define; he was called 
a clerk, but his time was chiefly spent in running errands, 
answering the telephone, cleaning the typewriters, 
opening the door, reading the newspaper from end to 
end, and staring out of the back window of the office, 
which happened to command a view of a printing-house, 
affording him an endless source of entertainment watch- 
ing the men at work. 

Mr Stewart-Cromwell’s salary was very small, but 
202 


VACUOUS DAYS 


203 

he was more than satisfied, and never accepted the ten 
shillings a week added by Phosie without a protest. 

He still continued to live in Belton Terrace, being on 
sufficiently good terms with the people in the house to 
spend several nights a week in their society, listening 
to the landlord’s political views, amusing the baby, or 
quietly sitting in a corner poring over one of the children’s 
books. 

Gus was often invited to Plantagenet Court, welcomed 
by Phosie and good-naturedly tolerated by Walter, and 
when Phosie’s engagement opened at the Paramount 
he went to the gallery nearly every night. She had 
no idea of this and would have been shocked at the 
waste of money, but Little Gus, who told her everything 
else, never betrayed himself. 

When Hewett Addison returned to London, his new 
comedy finished, he found the sketch of the “ Lost Fairy ” 
in the best place in the programme at the Paramount. 
Miss Sapio gave him a glowing account of Phosie’s 
success, and he hastened with his congratulations to her 
flat in Plantagenet Court. 

He found Mrs Race alone. She was unfeignedly glad 
to see him, so very glad that Hewett suspected that 
almost any visitor would have been equally welcome. 
He observed that she looked weary, an expression quite 
new to her face, and he also observed the extravagant 
perfection of her dress. If it had not been Phosie he 
would have dubbed her a Parisienne fashion-plate. 

It was spring, and the little green study was ablaze 
with daffodils. Hewett looked at the bells and spears 
of yellow and green with his usual immobility of coun- 
tenance. He was moved to quote his Wordsworth, 
but with a slight alteration in the last line of the well- 
known poem: 

“ How oft, when on my couch I lie, 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 

They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude ; 


204 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And I jump upon those daffodils ! ” 

He said this with such gravity that Phosie did not 
smile. They sat down by the fire, for it was still too 
chilly for an empty grate, and she gave him tea. After 
discussing her business affairs, which had passed out of 
Hewett’s hands into those of an energetic agent, he re- 
lapsed into silence. There was a feeling of constraint 
between them. 

Phosie had been alone all day, and now he was formal, 
cold, unfriendly. She forgot, for the minute, that Hewett 
Addison was very different from her husband, who 
never troubled to hide his moods. 

“Well! What do you think of it?” she asked, 
bending forward with her hands clasped lightly on her 
knees. 

Hewett, who had been staring at his feet with a fixed 
attention that suggested he had discovered they be- 
longed to somebody else, jerked up his head and read 
her thoughts. He made a little gesture with one hand, 
as expressive as if he had pointed to every object in the 
room, including herself. 

“I think it’s delightful!” he exclaimed. “It’s all 
in keeping, made to match. But, do you know, I cannot 
realise our absent friend. He seems out of place in the 
pretty picture.” 

“ Do you mean Walter? ” asked Phosie, with a smile. 

“ Yes.’ 

Her smile changed into a laugh. 

“ Now, there you’re wrong, Mr Addison,” she pro- 
tested. “ Walter is far more suited to Plantagenet 
Court than I am. He’s a thorough Londoner, and he 
hates to be away from the bricks and mortar. Streets, 
theatres, clubs — he loves and despises them all. Do 
you know what I think when I see Walter, day after 
day, living the life he chooses to live? ” 

Tell me,” said Hewett, gently. 


VACUOUS DAYS 


205 


She had not changed her easy pose, leaning forward, 
but he saw that her hands were clenched and shook 
a little. This writer of comedies was a student of 
women, and this woman was an instinctive judge of 
men. There was instant and absolute confidence between 
them. 

“ He makes me think of a man who is lost in a forest 
of shadows, but he thinks them real,” she went on. 
“ They surround him and he can’t see his way. They 
are shadows of pleasure, amusement, idle hours. They 
have blinded his eyes to the sunshine and he sees all 
things dimly. Other people’s joy or sorrow never affect 
Walter — ” her voice quivered a little. “ Pain, suffering, 
poverty, he passes them all by. No! I mustn’t say 
that. He is always generous with money.” 

She paused for a minute, twisting her rings round and 
round her fingers. 

” I know you’ll think I’m very sentimental in what 
I’m going to say, Mr Addison,” she continued. “ But 
Walter seems to me like a knight in an old legend who 
has been enchanted to forget the noble purposes of life. 
His bright sword is rusted. The wreath of his youth 
is fading on his brow. The world sweeps past him as he 
sits at the edge of the road, flicked with dust, dreaming a 
worthless dream.” 

Hewett Addison, surprised at her words, was silent 
for a while. 

“You see what a child I am, talking about knights 
and enchantments,” said Phosie. “ You mustn’t be 
hard on me, Mr Addison. Walter says I live in a world 
of my own, an imaginary, fairy-story world.” 

Hewett passed over this last speech in answering. 

“ Can’t you break the spell which binds your knight, 
Mrs Race? I am sure you have the power if you will 
only exert it.” 

She shook her head doubtfully. 

“ I am afraid not. Sometimes I think that at first — ” 


2o6 a spirit of mirth 

She stopped, pondering, before beginning another 
sentence. 

“ Perhaps I am only one of the shadows in the forest 
where the knight is lost ; perhaps if I were more earnest, 
older, and better trained, I should be able to help 
him.” 

“ What would you have him do? ” asked Hewett, 
curiously. Of course he should work, but that is only 
a means to an end. I think a woman more often for- 
gets this than a man, putting aside the woman who 
looks upon wealth as the all-important object to be 
obtained. She is definite enough, to do her justice.” 

“ I don’t think I look as far as you do,” said Phosie. 
“ It seems to me that every action — a man’s business, 
his pleasure, his interests — ^should be the end and aim of 
the passing minute.” 

“ ‘ Sufficient unto the day ’ — quite so,” said Hewett. 
“ But surely you look beyond the day and its suffi- 
iency? ’ 

“Oh, yes!” she answered quickly. “But I was 
thinking of Walter’s contempt for the trifles of life, and 
they mean so much. He says that the more one studies 
the world the more one laughs at it. I agree, if he 
would change one word. We must laugh with the 
world, not at it. Perhaps that is the only difference in 
our outlook — and perhaps — ^perhaps it is all nonsense, 
Mr Addison.” 

Her sudden change of tone was a relief, for their ap- 
parently light words had covered on her side a revelation 
of inner distress, and on his a sympathy which read her 
thoughts too clearly. 

“As I said before, the whole effect is delightful,” 
said Hewett, repeating the little sweeping gesture round 
the room. 

“ Have you met Walter’s relations? ” asked Phosie. 

“ I haven’t had the pleasure.” 

“ One of the brothers and his wife dined with us 


VACUOUS DAYS 


207 

yesterday — Mr and Mrs Edmund Race. They’re in the 
Church. 

“ Both of them? ” asked Hewett. 

“ Of course not! Though Walter says she writes his 
sermons. He’s very like Walter, but not so hand- 
some. They made me dreadfully nervous. Edmund 
doesn’t approve of my dancing, and Alicia said my 
name was pagan. Edmund agreed that it was very 
pagan, and he thought it suited me. I wanted them 
to call me Phosie, like everybody else, but they 
wouldn’t.” 

“ What did you talk about? ” asked Hewett. 

Her eyes twinkled. 

“ Oh, principally about the weather, and the Royal 
Family, and the immorality of Nonconformists in his 
parish. Walter can’t bear Alicia. They seem to make 
each other cross.” 

“ Is that your husband’s only brother? ” 

“ Oh, no, there’s John, who is still angry with him for 
marrying me. He has it firmly fixed in his head I was 
a barmaid. Then there’s Leo, who seems to spend his 
life tearing about the country killing things. Frank, 
the youngest, is in Canada. They lost their father 
years ago, but their mother only died last winter. I’m 
afraid they were not very fond of her.” 

“ I hope they are all going to be brotherly and sisterly 
to you,” said Hewett. 

“ I hope so,” echoed Phosie, wistfully. “ But you 
see I am rather a shock — a disgrace to their house. 
Walter doesn’t seem anxious to introduce me to them. 
It is a little trying, I confess, for the son of a county 
family to marry the daughter of a Human Eel! You 
must see that for yourself, Mr Addison.’ 

They both burst out laughing, but before Hewett 
could straighten his face he saw, by her expression 
that she had forgotten both him and the subject of their 
mirth. Her eyes dilated and she stooped forward. 


2o8 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


listening. She had caught the sound of a key in the 
front door before Hewett heard it. 

“ Ah, there’s Walter! ” she exclaimed. 

Addison looked curiously at his friend as he entered 
the room. Their greeting was mutually cordial. Race 
stooped to kiss Phosie and sat down in her chair. 

“ Will you have some tea, dear? ” she asked. 

He touched the tea-pot. 

“ My child, it’s stone cold! ” 

“ I’ll ask her to make some more, Walter. I’ll get 
it myself,” and she jumped to her feet. 

“No, no! That’s quite unnecessary,” he said irrit- 
ably. “ Ring the bell.” 

Hewett Addison began to talk about his new comedy, 
for when once a work was completed he liked to discuss 
its possibilities with his intimate friends, and Walter 
quickly recovered himself. Hewett had thought, when 
he first came in, how ill-humour spoilt his handsome 
face, but Phosie admired him in any mood. 

The spring drifted into summer. Her engagement 
at the Paramount was succeeded by a much longer en- 
engagement at one of the smaller halls. Her pleasure in 
the work increased with practice, and she arranged to take 
lessons from the best teacher of stage-dancing in London. 
Walter gave his consent with good-natured indifference. 

His brothers, the J.P. and the clergyman, were very 
indignant with Phosie, and even more with Phosie’s 
husband. They said she ought to leave the stage at 
once. Leo refused to join in the dispute. He admired 
his brother’s wife and always made a point of disagreeing 
with John and Edmund. Walter told them to mind 
their own business. He had been accustomed from 
boyhood to family feuds, which raged all the more 
fiercely for frequent, and even lengthy, armistices, but 
they made Phosie unhappy. 

“ At a word from you I’ll leave the stage,” she told 
her husband. 


VACUOUS DAYS 


209 


“ But I’m not going to speak it until I choose,” he re- 
plied. ” You’re married to me, my dear, not to the bully 
or the parson.” 

The bully and the parson were the affectionate names 
he always bestowed upon his brothers when he hap- 
pened to be quarrelling with them. His nickname for 
Leo was “ Squire Western,” but as Leo had never read 
Tom Jones — or anything else — he took it in good part. 

Phosie had expected, in the first months of her 
marriage, to be enlightened on her husband’s affairs. 
She knew the amount of his income, but had not the 
slightest idea how his money was invested. He was 
always in debt, much more heavily in debt than she 
had suspected, but beyond the occasional necessity of 
paying a pressing bill he seemed to ignore the fact. 

He never touched a penny of her salary, the mere 
suggestion would have offended him, but he liked her 
to spend it all on dress, always consulting his taste. 
They entertained a great deal, Mr Carl Stratton being 
one of their most frequent guests. His influence over 
Walter grew with their intimacy, and even Phosie, con- 
cealing an innate dislike of the man, was obliged to con- 
fess that he was an amusing, courteous companion. 

Her London engagement ended with the summer. 
She refused to go on tour. Hewett Addison promised 
her a new sketch for the Christmas season. 

Life in Plantagenet Court was all unchanged and un- 
changing as the months passed by. Phosie had grown 
accustomed to it. 

She was free in the early morning, for Walter rarely 
breakfasted before eleven, but as there was nothing to 
do in the flat she generally went out of doors, tramped 
through St James’s Park, or along the Embankment, 
or into the city, often accompanying Little Gus, who 
called for her, to Mr Faraday’s office. 

In the afternoon she went out with her husband. An 
endless round of little pleasures filled the endless hours. 
14 


210 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


One day it would be an At Home,” the next a picture- 
gallery, the next a matinee. In the evening they dined 
at one or another of his favourite haunts, unless there 
were visitors at Plantagenet Court. 

Marriage had made little difference in the careless 
hospitality with which Walter had always treated his 
friends. There were more ladies than formerly, but 
Race might still have been a bachelor in his freedom 
with the men. Dullness never barred his doors, for 
Euphrosyne was always gay, interested in other people’s 
affairs, and ready to play her part in the comedy of the 
hour. 

If Walter was bored on occasion it was not the bore- 
dom of the old days. He was no longer hopeless or 
cynical, but sometimes, when he looked at Phosie, he 
was stirred with vague self-reproach, dormant ambition, 
the consciousness of growth and change. She had ful- 
filled his hopes. He had found what he had sought, in 
the pursuit of mirth, no more and no less. 

Satisfied and happy, he read no judgment in the fond- 
ness of his wife’s eyes, but her heart had long been weary 
of the vacuous days. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


euphrosyne’s garden 

M r & MRS RACE, when they had been married 
about a year and a half, left their flat in Planta- 
genet Court. 

Miss Sapio had taken a bungalow on the river, and 
Walter, after spending a day there, was seized with the 
desire to possess a bungalow of his own. 

“ We shall be able to live at half our present rate,’' he 
said to his wife. “ That will lift a great weight off my 
shoulders.” 

” Are you worried about money, dear? ” asked Phosie, 
glad of the opening he had given her. 

” Is that anything new? ” he answered, staring 
gloomily out of the carriage window — they were in the 
train returning from the visit to Miss Sapio — and speak- 
ing in an injured voice. 

” I wish you would explain your affairs to me, Walter, 
she urged 

“ My dear girl, I wish I could explain them to myself,” 
said Race. ” Fm in a hopeless muddle, Phosie. Carl 
Stratton knows all about it. I believe he’s going to make 
my fortune.” 

He laughed bitterly at himself. 

“ What has Mr Stratton got to do with us? ” she said. 
“ I can’t understand your absolute reliance on another 
man, Walter. Surely your money is safe, isn’t it? ” 

He stared out of the window again, his wife watching 
him anxiously. Then he turned slowly and looked at her. 
His brow cleared. 


211 


212 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“You look as fresh as when we started,” he said. 
“How do you manage it, Phosie? Won’t it be de- 
lightful to live in the country? I’m sick of London — oh, 
yes, I am! ” seeing her look of incredulity. “ I’m sick 
of it. I want to have a garden, and a punt, and play 
golf all day.” 

“ But tell me about your money — ” she began. 

Hang it all, no!” he interrupted. “I can’t en- 
courage the discussion of disagreeable topics, my dear. 
You have never worried me about money and I hope 
you’re not going to begin. It’s all right. We’re safe, 
whatever happens, with your little legacy from old 
Revell. How much is it? About enough for my 
buttonholes and cigarettes ! See what it is to marry a 
woman of property.” 

Phosie was too pleased at his change of mood to 
resent his light contempt for “ old Revell’s legacy.” 

“ I love the country,” she said. “ But I never 
dared to hope it would have any attraction for you, 
Walter.’ 

“ As I’ve often said before, you’re not a judge of char- 
acter, Phosie.” 

In less than three weeks, for Race could be very 
energetic when he chose, they had sub-let the flat in 
Plantagenet Court and moved into a small furnished 
house at Sterry, a village within half an hour’s walk of 
the river. 

The owners of the house were people of simple and 
excellent taste, and even Walter had no fault to find 
with the pictures and furniture. 

To Phosie the change was of sheer delight. Town- 
bred as she was, her quick, sensitive nature at once 
responded to the sights and sounds of a garden. She 
was both patient and observant, and if there is any truth 
in the idea that some people are more successful with 
plants and flowers than others, Phosie certainly belonged 
to the former class. 


PHOSIE’S GARDEN 


213 


Little Gus, who spent every week-end at Sterry, 
counted them as some of the happiest days of his un- 
eventful life. He was more silent than formerly, still 
retained his fondness for long words, and had grown a 
couple of inches between his eighteenth and nineteenth 
birthdays. His eyes, always weak, were more red- 
rimmed and watery than ever and he had taken to wear- 
ing spectacles. 

Perhaps there never was a man with less idea of 
gardening than Little Gus, for he was a Cockney to the 
backbone, but with none of the Cockney’s sharpness and 
adaptability. 

He worked, like an obedient child, under Phosie’s 
directions, a slave to the lawn-mower and imbued with 
an absolute passion for watering the flower-beds. Gus 
was hardly so successful in the matter of weeding, for 
he generally failed to distinguish weeds from cherished 
slips. 

“ They’re all of ’em so pretty,” he said. 

Walter Race, lying in the hammock or lounging in a 
low chair, in the shade of the trees, watched Little Gus 
working in the garden with amused interest. 

” Don’t you find it awfully hot, old boy? ” he asked, 
when Gus was summoned to the tea-table. 

Gus mopped his brow and took off his blurred spec- 
tacles to polish the glasses. 

” I’m very fond of horticulture,” he answered. 

“ I think you only do it to please Phosie,” said Race, 
smiling at his wife as she brought him his tea. 

” I dunno,” replied Gus. “ I suppose so. I wish 
I could do more. If I was like you, Walter, it wouldn’t 
matter.” 

” What do you mean, if you were like me? ” asked 
Walter, idly. 

Gus looked up at him from his seat on the grass with 
humble admiration. 

” You’re such a fine, agreeable feller, good-looking 


214 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


and all that, you don’t have to exert yourself to please 
Phosie. You never do, you see, but of course Fm very 
different. She naturally expects it from me. It’s no 
good expecting it from you. Besides, I really like 
horticulture. You don’t.” 

Walter raised his head for a second, looking sharply 
down at Gus, but Gus was incapable of the sarcasm he 
suspected. He dropped back into his former position 
with his hat pulled over his eyes. 

“ So I never exert myself to please Phosie? ” he re- 
peated softly. 

It was a new thought, slightly annoying, and he very 
wisely tried to forget it. Was there ever such a trifle 
— the careless speech of a simpleton like Gus — to take 
possession of a man’s mind and start a train of thought 
which refused to be banished? He was amazed at 
himself. Why should he be compelled, and self-com- 
peUed, that was the irony of it, to think of his wife in a 
new light? 

The following day, while this question was still linger- 
ing in the background of his mind, Miss Sapio, with the 
best intentions in the world, gave poor Walter another 
little shock of surprise. 

She had been spending the day at Sterry, accompanied 
by Mr Quizzical Quilter, and, as ill-luck would have 
it, his brother Edmund had also paid them an unexpected 
visit. 

Phosie’s eyes fairly danced with amusement when the 
Reverend Edmund was announced and she met her 
husband’s despairing glance. 

Was there ever a more incongruous party! She 
greeted her brother-in-law with an affectionate cordiality 
that more than compensated for Walter’s coldness, 
introduced her other guests, and made up her mind, 
whatever happened, to hold the whip hand in the con- 
versation. 

Fortunately Miss Sapio was in a quiet mood, and 


PHOSIE’S GARDEN 


215 


Phosie saw at once, although such a possibility never 
occurred to Walter, that Edmund Race was moved 
to unwilling admiration by her striking, if aggressive, 
beauty 

Their hostess, by tactful avoidance of subjects on 
which they could never agree, positively made them 
think they liked each other. 

The management of Quizzy, in white flannels with 
a striped orange and red sash, was a more delicate task. 
Walter would have snubbed him unmercifully, but Phosie 
was too kind-hearted. She made him sit by her at 
lunch, listened to his stories attentively, but contrived 
to interpose the skilful word, or the light jest, which 
prevented the others from drifting into any serious 
discussion. 

It was Mr Edmund Race himself who caused her 
trouble. At first he had treated Quizzy with a distant 
patronage that depressed the veteran, but after tea, 
when they were all sitting on the lawn, he turned the 
conversation on the subject of the stage, for the Reverend 
Edmund flattered himself on being all things to all men. 
His wife called him a student of humanity, which sounds 
better than saying a man is inordinately inquisitive 
about other people’s affairs. 

“You must have had a very varied experience of 
theatrical life, Mr Quilter? ’’ said the clergyman. 

Mr Quilter squeezed up his face, as if it were made 
of india-rubber, and nodded a great number of times 
before replying. 

“ I am fifty-one years of age, sir,’’ he replied — Quizzy 
was sixty- three — “ and I’ve been in the profession ever 
since I could toddle. I made my first appearance as a 
black-beetle.’ 

“Good gracious, Quizzy! How disgusting!’’ ex- 
claimed Miss Sapio 

“ That was in panto,” he continued. “ My poor old 
father was the pantaloon, my uncle was clown, my 


2i6 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Cousin Joe was the bobby, and my little sister Rose was 
columbine. All in the family, snug and comfortable. 
My mother put me into a pair of her stockings for tights, 
and I came on all by myself in the kitchen scene. Of 
course I couldn’t do much, but I just ' threw a flip- 
flap ’ and stood on my head. It went immense. It’s 
wonderful how the public appreciate a neat, clean little 
bit of old-fashioned stuff.” 

” Of what description — er — what do you mean by 
stuff? ” asked the Reverend Edmund. 

” A good bit o’ business, you twig,” explained Mr 
Quilter. ” Take standing on your head, for instance. 
It isn’t so very difficult, not if you’ve been trained right, 
but it always goes.” 

“ If it is in its right place,” suggested Phosie. “You 
wouldn’t recommend every actor to try standing on his 
head, would you?” 

“ Of course not, my dear,” said Quizzy, taking her 
question very seriously. “ It would never do in Shake- 
speare. The public don’t expect to be livened up when 
they come to see what we used to call the legitimate. It 
was different in the old burlesques and in this modern 
musical comedy. I don’t know whether you’ll agree with 
me, sir,” Quizzy went on, turning to the clergyman, 
“ but I don’t believe in serious drama. The stage isn’t 
a pulpit. People come to the theatre to enjoy them- 
selves. They want to see the bright side o’ life. It’s 
our business to show it ’em. God bless my soul ! What 
are we actors made for? ” 

“You are certainly a merry band! ” said the 
Reverend Edmund, with an attempt to be jovial. 

' Sometimes we envy you, we serious folk. Yes, 
we do. But we can’t aU be jesters, Mr Quilter. It 
must be very delightful to act in a pantomime with 
one’s relatives.” 

“ Can you imagine us acting in a pantomime with 
ours?” asked Walter, drily. “Phosie would make a 


PHOSIE’S GARDEN 


217 

captivating columbine, but I can’t see you as a rattlingly 
funny clown, Edmund.” 

“ My dear Walter, don’t be so ridiculous! ” 

” Quite right, Mr Race,” said Quizzical Quilter. 
” I can’t picture your brother in our business. I’m 
afraid he wouldn’t make a success of it. Well, we’ve 
all got our own walk in life. We can’t be equally 
talented.” 

The Reverend Edmund glared at Quizzy, but Walter 
burst out laughing, and Miss Sapio tried not to smile. 
Euphrosyne saved the situation by a tactful allusion 
to her brother-in-law’s fine elocution. She was sure 
Mr Quilter would appreciate it, and the fortunate arrival 
of Mr Carl Stratton prevented Quizzy becoming anec- 
dotal on his own elocution. 

Walter’s ill-humour passed away, and he began to 
enjoy himself. Stratton was encouraged by his hostess 
to describe some of his adventures in the Far East, for 
he had travelled extensively and could talk well on the 
subject. Quizzy was flattered by her constant attention 
for the rest of the afternoon, and Edmund Race actually 
told his wife, when he returned home, that he had found 
his visit extremely pleasant on the whole, extremely 
pleasant. 

Miss Sapio stopped to dinner, and it was when Walter 
was putting her into her hired pony carriage that she 
made the following remark about Euphrosyne: 

“You must be very proud of your wife, Wally. I 
never knew anybody so tactful and well bred. Hewett 
Addison likes to talk to her, and he’s an exceptionally 
clever man, we must all acknowledge that. Your 
brother seems fond of her, and I suppose she’s a favourite 
with the rest of the family? ” 

He made some trifling reply, stood in the road until 
the pony-carriage disappeared, and then returned slowly 
to the house. 

Walter had not introduced Phosie to his eldest brothers 


2i8 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


purposely keeping them apart, and he searched for a 
true reason for the first time since his marriage. 

Was he ashamed of her? No, a hundred times 
no! 

Thus he answered himself as sternly as he would 
have answered anybody else, but at the same time 
his secret heart arraigned his loyalty. Why had he 
always told himself that she was worthy? What did he 
mean by that? Worthy to be his wife — his equal? 
Yes ! But was he worthy to be her husband — her equal ? 
Ah! that was a new thought. 

It was a beautiful evening, clear and still, and re- 
minded him of the starry night when he had loved 
Phosie so well. A great bed of evening primroses glowed 
in the moonbeams like fairy lamps. The sweet scent of 
nicotine hung in the air. 

At the sound of his step on the gravel Phosie appeared 
at the open door leading into the drawing-room. She 
had turned out the lamp and stood waiting as he came 
near, the moonlight gleaming on her white dress. 

“You must be very tired,” said Walter. 

She gave a tiny start of surprise at his solicitude. 

“ Only a little,” she answered, stepping through the 
doors. “ Let us walk round the garden.” 

They strolled along in silence, Walter smoking, with 
one hand in his pocket. There was a soft, warm breeze, 
and suddenly a nightingale began to sing. 

“ Listen! ” said Phosie, laying her hand on his arm. 

They stood still. The throbbing notes floated into 
the silence of the night. The leaves stirred to mur- 
murous music. The moon swept out from a veil of 
clouds. 

Walter Race, as the nightingale stopped singing, looked 
into the face upturned to his. 

“ ‘ On such a night ’ ” — he said. 

Phosie threw her arms round his neck, and laid her 
cheek to his, with the soft caress he knew so well. 


PHOSIE’S GARDEN 


219 


‘'Tears?'’ said Walter. “What is the matter with 
my little elf? Moonbeam! Come, tell your lover. 
Somehow, to-night, we feel like lovers again, don't we, 
Phosie? " 

“ No — ^husband and wife — dearer — nearer — '' she 
answered, brokenly. 

Surprise and doubt possessed him, but only for a few 
second, then he was certain of the truth and stooped 
down, for her face was hidden on his breast. 

“ Tell me! " he said, and she whispered in his ear. 

“ It is true at last, Walter! Ours! A little one — 
yours and mine, love. Our own! " 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE INDIVIDUALITY OF JANE 

T he summer at Sterry was followed by a period of 
great prosperity for Walter Race. 

A spin in the fickle wheel of Fortune whirled Mr 
Carl Stratton into wealth. All he touched turned, 
for a while, into gold. His friend, who was, figuratively 
speaking, hanging on to the flap of his pocket, shared 
the good luck. 

Phosie found herself in possession of a motor and a 
maid. She would have liked to remain at Sterry, but 
her husband was anxious to get back to town. 

Plantagenet Court no longer satisfied him; he found 
it too cramped, simple and old-fashioned. 

The West End was explored and a house secured, 
not exactly in Park Lane, but in one of the adjacent 
streets. It was small, dull and expensive; a thin house 
with obscure, diamond-paned windows, and a huge 
brass knocker on a beautifully painted door. The 
privilege of owning such a knocker, Hewett Addison 
said, was doubtless considered in the rent. 

The interior decorations were conventionally handsome, 
and Walter’s choice of furniture could be described by 
the same adjectives. 

There was a small dining-room on the ground floor, 
panelled in dark wood, with a highly-polished round 
table, olive green curtains, and high-backed, green 
leather-covered chairs. 

The pale blue-and-white drawing-room was adorned 
with silk hangings and lamp shades of the same tint, 
220 


THE INDIVIDUALITY OF JANE 221 


together with dainty French furniture. To quote 
Hewett again, it suggested Act 11. of a Society comedy 
at the St. James’s Theatre. 

The largest bedroom was in a perpetual blush of rose- 
pink, and possessed an adjoining cupboard called a 
dressing-room. The two spare bedrooms were prin- 
cipally to be noted for an uninterrupted view from 
their windows of assorted tiles and smoky chimneys, 
affording a popular resort for the cats of the neigh- 
bourhood. 

The study — most inappropriate name for any room 
in Temple Street, Mayfair — was so dark that it was im- 
possible to read or write, even on a sunny day, without 
artificial light. 

The basement was like a dungeon, with cells for the 
servants to sleep in. Such were the chief attractions 
of a house for which Mr Walter Race had the privilege 
of paying two hundred and fifty pounds a year. 

Euphrosyne would never have taken it, but she was 
overruled by her husband. 

“ Of course this is very pretty,” she confessed, look- 
ing round the blue- and- white drawing-room, “ but there 
is so little light, and the servants’ rooms are so tiny.” 

“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” exclaimed Walter. 
“ And as for there being no light, it’s foggy everywhere 
to-day.” 

“ I wish we could have had a garden, dear,” she said 
timidly. “ Or even a yard with only a plot of grass or a 
couple of bushes.” 

The house-agent’s clerk smiled indulgently. He was 
accustomed to the irrational desires of prospective 
tenants. 

“ You are within a stone’s throw of Hyde Park, 
madam,” he said. 

“ But it might be a hundred miles away for all I can 
see of it,” answered Phosie, peering through the little 
window-panes at the houses opposite. 


222 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ But it isn’t a hundred miles away, madam,” said 
the clerk, gravely. ” I assure you it is within a stone’s 
throw. It would be difficult to obtain a house more 
pleasantly situated as regards Hyde Park. As a gentle- 
man in our office said last week, Temple Street is posi- 
tively next door to it.” 

“ Exactly. No doubt it’s a great advantage,” said 
Walter. 

” The staircase is rather narrow, isn’t it? ” observed 
Phosie, as they descended to the study. ” And this room 
is so very gloomy.” 

” Of course it is, madam, without the electric light,” 
said the clerk. “ Allow me to get at the switch. 
There! What a difference! ” 

” Don’t you think it’s a disadvantage to be so closely 
walled in by other houses? ” asked Phosie. 

“ Not at all, madam, when you are accustomed to it,” 
said the clerk, patiently. “ I assure you some of the best 
flats on our books are entirely dependent on artificial 
light. In fact many people prefer it, especially ladies. 
It is more soft, more easily regulated. There’s a certain 
uncomfortable glare about sunshine. It spoils one’s 
carpets and furniture.” 

” Then you think it would be well to keep sunshine 
out of one’s house altogether? ” asked Phosie, with her 
twinkling eyes on the sallow face of the clerk. 

” I shouldn’t go as far as that, madam,” he replied. 
” But I certainly think all those kind of things — ^wind, 
sunshine and rain — ^properly belong to the country. We 
can do without them in towns.” 

“ Of course we can! ” said Walter, who had not been 
listening. ” What I like about this house is the situa- 
tion. I don’t believe we could do better. It pleases me. 
It is just what I want.” 

” Then it pleases me too, Walter.” she answered 
quickly. 

” You really mean that? You will be happy here? ” 


THE INDIVIDUALITY OF JANE 223 

The clerk had gone out of the room for a minute. 
Phosie seized the opportunity to slip her hand into 
Walter’s and give it a little squeeze. 

“ I am happy anywhere with you,” she said. 

So it was settled. They missed the fresh air and 
pretty garden at Sterry, and even the outlook over the 
river at Plantagenet Court, but all their friends con- 
gratulated them on the new house. 

Phosie wished, as the long autumn days dragged on, 
that her husband would show half as much interest in 
the advent of the younger Walter — she had made up her 
mind it would be a son — as he did in furnishing his dark 
little study. He was seized with a mania for ” picking 
up ” curiosities. Too shrewd to be easily gulled, he 
spent his money to greater advantage than the usual 
amateur collector, and the limited space at his dis- 
posal held him in check. If he had purchased all his 
discoveries it would have been necessary for the family 
to camp in the road, for the house would have been too 
crowded to hold them. 

When Walter thought of the coming child at aU it 
was with mixed feelings of whimsical pleasure and half- 
awakened, not wholly welcome, responsibility. 

Without regretting his hasty marriage, for his life 
before Phosie came into it was dull and loveless to con- 
template, he had long regarded it as an unaccountable 
step, an inconceivable imprudence. He refused to take 
himself seriously, or to look upon his wife as other than 
a little strange girl who had opened his heart with a 
laugh and seized the opportunity to take possession. 

A younger Walter had no place in the older Walter’s 
imagination. He always thought of the child as a 
second Phosie, with its mother’s eyes, her colouring, her 
disposition. 

Well, a Phosie in miniature might be very amusing. 
He had always hoped for the birth of a girl and his hopes 
were realised. 


224 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


The little Dorothea, for so they named her, was a 
brown-sldnned baby with big, mournful eyes, and a 
quantity of silky, dark hair. 

Utterly unlike her mother, Walter Race looked at 
her for the first time with the surprise that follows the 
shattering of an idea. Then he smiled at his own ex- 
pectations. He had thought to see the likeness to Phosie 
in an infant of less than three hours old! It was as 
absurd as the whisper of his wife that she could see the 
likeness to himself. 

He laid the tiny, boneless hand in his palm, and the 
strength of his nature ebbed and flowed into gentle com- 
passion and unknown tenderness. 

This was reality — the wife, the child — and it gripped 
his heart. 

The opening years of little Dorothea’s life were spent, 
as Hewett Addison once observed, in the reflected 
splendour of Mr Carl Stratton’s speculations. 

She lived in Temple Street, Mayfair, and possessed 
everything that money could buy. 

Her first impressions of the outer world were of a great 
green plain, with trees that looked as if they would 
reach the sky; endless flowers; big, alarming creatures 
rushing about with their mouths open, called dogs; other 
babies, being wheeled beside her own baby carriage, 
at whom she stared in wordless interest; children with 
huge, unmanageable hoops or balls that she could never 
catch; and superior beings, in stiff dresses and little 
bonnets, one of whom was her exclusive property and 
named “ Nanna. 

Her life within doors was very interesting. There 
were so many rooms and such endless stairs! What a 
memorable day when she first started to climb up those 
stairs. It was so difficult that it made her pant, but 
there was no reason for the unnecessary excitement of 
somebody who rushed into the hall shouting, “Nurse! 
Nurse! Come and look at baby! ” 


THE INDIVIDUALITY OF JANE 225 

The people who surrounded her were all more or 
less important, and she studied their peculiarities with 
grave, critical eyes long before she had mastered speech. 

One of them was very big and in the habit of swing- 
ing her up in the air, but never paid any attention to 
such vital matters as her meals or her bath. This 
person had dark hair which was pleasant to clutch, and 
a broad shoulder to sit upon. He was far more generous 
with lumps of sugar and sweets than anybody else in the 
house. 

Then there was somebody, whom they called Cook, 
living downstairs in a room with a roaring fire, her 
chief characteristics being a big red face and a dangling 
little toy in each ear that it was a great temptation to 
pull. This person’s only charm lay in the fact that she 
captured a soft, furry animal wandering about the floor 
and held it in her arms to be stroked. 

But of all the baby’s little world she was most attached 
to the person who sat in the same room as the broad- 
shouldered man. Her face was so much softer than his, 
and her voice was gentle. It was good to nestle against 
her breast, there being no hard buttons on her dress, like 
there were on Nanna’s, and she made a low, crooning 
noise which sent one to sleep. 

She often knelt down on the floor to play, or rolled 
Dorothea over on her back, tickling her till she choked 
with laughter. She was never cross like Nanna, or indif- 
ferent like the man, but always smiling. It was a 
glorious thing to leave the security of the seat of a 
chair, totter a few uncertain steps, and faU into the haven 
of her loving arms. 

All these were the first impressions of Dorothea’s life. 
She resembled her father in every way. It pleased him, 
but awakened an unreasonable surprise in his mind. 
She was not the elf he had expected, but a very human 
child, looking at him wonderingly with eyes just like his 
own. 


15 


226 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Dad ” was the first word she spoke, but it was not 
bestowed, after the usual manner of babies, on any man 
whom she wished to address. If she did not see her father 
for a whole day, she did not speak for a whole day. It 
was a long time before she gave her mother any name, 
always greeting her with cooing, indistinct sounds of 
love. 

There was none of Phosie's levity about her daughter. 
She displayed, at an early age, determination of char- 
acter coupled with feminine vanity. 

On one occasion, when Walter returned home un- 
expectedly in the middle of the morning, he heard the 
sound of uproarious laughter in the nursery. He threw 
open the door to discover his wife. Miss Sapio, and the 
nurse assisting the baby to make her choice from a pile 
of new bonnets, sent on approbation from a shop in 
Oxford Street. 

The baby, stead5fing herself by the seat of a chair, 
was standing in front of a long mirror. A bonnet was 
placed on her head by the nurse. She looked at the 
reflection for a minute and then plucked it fiercely off 
and threw it on the floor. One after another was treated 
in the same way, to the joy of the beholders, until the 
appearance of swansdown and lace changed her frown 
into an ecstatic smile, and she turned up her face for 
the strings to be tied under her chin. 

She was equally firm in the matter of shoes, kicking 
or wriggling out of any pair she did not like with little 
grunts of denunciation. 

Her second and third words were ‘‘ Bark ” and “ Mew,^' 
addressed to the dog and cat, and evidently to be re- 
garded as a protest against the inanimity of “ Bow-wow 
and “ Tiddy.” 

It was at the arrival of a new nurse that this thought- 
ful child first displayed her gift for bestowing appro- 
priate names. 

She had had one Nanna, and considered it ridiculous 


THE INDIVIDUALITY OF JANE 227 

to call an utterly different person by the same name. 
So she turned to her mother, after staring at the stranger 
for several minutes, with an expression of one who has 
solved a problem. 

“ Ada! ” she said, pointing to the new nurse. 

Protests were unavailing. It was ‘‘ Ada ” from that 
day forward, for no one could induce her to say Nanna. 

On another occasion, after mature reflection, she gave 
the name of Maude to a tall, haughty housemaid who 
happened to have been christened Daisy; ordained that 
the cook should be known as Mrs Stout — this was 
more obvious than her usual attempts — and dignified 
the boy who cleaned the windows and knives, hitherto 
called Bob, by the name of Mr Roberts. She won Little 
Gus’s heart by calling him “ Mine Gussy.” 

It is customary to ask children their names, but for 
a long time Miss Dorothea Race refused to answer the 
question. She was making up her mind, but a day came 
when she had reached a decision. 

” What are you called, dear? ” asked a lady who was 
calling on her mother. 

Jane,” was the prompt reply. 

“ No, my darling,” said Phosie, laughing, ” your name 
is Dorothea.” 

” Jane,” repeated the child. 

Phosie told this to her husband. 

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “That’s very appro- 
priate. One of my rich aunts is named Jane. I re- 
collect that we had an old sampler at home, hanging in 
the schoolroom, that was worked by my grandmother, 
who was another Jane.” 

“ But it’s such a prim little name,” said Phosie. “ I 
remember Mr Revell singing the time of one of Sims 
Reeves’s favourite songs called ‘My pretty Jane.’ It 
suggests a crinoline and ringlets.” 

“ I should rather say that it suggests an enig- 
matical character,” put in Hewett Addison, who was 


228 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


dining at Temple Street. “ Dorothea stands for romance, 
or sentiment, or saintliness; names of two or three 
syllables generally do, but the apparently unpromising 
simplicity of J-a-n-e is full of possibilities. No Jane was 
ever like any other Jane.” 

“ Define your own idea of a Jane,” said Walter. 

” My study is too elementary,” replied Hewett. Of 
course the first Jane one thinks about is Shelley’s Jane 
Williams. You remember the end of the poem, ' Ariel 
to Miranda, with a Guitar ’ : 

“ ‘ It keeps its highest, holiest tone, 

For our belovm Jane alone,’ 

“ Then for a couple of contrasts, could two women 
be more unlike each other than Jane Austen and Jane 
Welsh Carlyle? Let me see, we’ve only had one of our 
queens named Jane, haven’t we? Jane Seymour, you 
know, Henry VIII. ’s third wife. Lady Jane Grey was 
quite a different historical heroine, so was Jane Shore. 
Thomas Hood married a lady called Jane, didn’t he? 
And Coventry Patmore gave life and reality to the name 
in his Victories of Love'* 

I begin to think you’re an advanced student,” said 
Phosie. “What about Jane in fiction?” 

Hewett pondered a second. 

“ Well, I suppose Mrs Fairfax Rochester has the first 
claim on our admiration. Miss Austen has given us 
a couple of captivating Janes — Miss Bennett in Pride 
and Prejudice and Miss Fairfax in Emma, Thackeray’s 
Lady Jane Newcome is a poor little soul. I don’t think 
Dickens has done Justice to the name. Nobody can call 
Miss Murdstone a lovable person, but there’s just a line 
about a nice girl named Jane at the Bath Assembly 
Rooms in Pickwick, and don’t you remember sweet little 
Jane Pocket in Great Expectations?” 

“ Are there Janes to be found on the stage? ” asked 
Phosie. 


THE INDIVIDUALITY OF JANE 229 

“ I can only think of two modern instances/' said 
Hewett. “ There’s the tantalising heroine of Henry 
Arthur Jones’s Manoeuvres of Jane, and Gilbert’s majes- 
tic Lady Jane in Patience. By the way, don’t you re- 
collect the name of Miss Jane Porter, who wrote a novel 
called The Scottish Chiefs ; and, plunging still farther 
back into the days of our infancy, we’ve all heard of 
‘Naughty, naughty little Miss Jane.’ I have a hazy 
idea that she spent sixpence on raspberry rock and 
spoilt her dinner as well as her frock. I am sure your 
daughter has chosen her name well. After all, Dorothea 
Race sounds like the heroine of a novel. Jane Race 
might be a woman of genius.” 

On the following morning her father greeted the baby 
as Jane. She responded cordially. Her mother called 
her Dorothea. She made no response at all. 

So it was settled. Jane was Jane to the end of the 
chapter. 


CHAPTER XXV 


FRANK race’s STORY 

P HOSIE had not forgotten Jules Revell, although 
she never spoke of him. 

The impression of fear and abhorrence which he had 
made on her mind deepened with the passing of time. 
She deceived herself in thinking that indifference had 
succeeded contempt. An exaggerated hatred of this 
man was a flaw in the crystal clearness of her nature. 

Even when she knew that his passion for herself — 
the passion he had sworn was undying — had passed 
away and he was married to another woman, the thought 
of him still had the power of distressing and agitating 
her. She realised this on the few occasions when they 
had seen each other in the streets. Once at a concert, 
when he had taken the seat just behind her, she knew 
without turning her head that he was there. 

Jules had married his neighbour, Lily Parlow, who had 
grown into a pretty, pink-and-white girl, and inherited, 
at the death of her elderly parents, a not inconsiderable 
fortune. Jules was amazed at the amount, and his 
clandestine love-making, which had never been sus- 
pected by her doting father and mother, suddenly be- 
came serious. 

They were married before the grass had had time to 
grow on the newly-made graves, for Lily did not believe 
in sentimental sorrow, and the bridegroom’s fingers 
itched for the hoarded hundreds. 

As she read and tore to pieces the wedding-cards, 
carefully sent by Mrs Jules Revell, Phosie Race smiled 
230 


FRANK RACE’S STORY 


231 


and sighed. She had loved and admired Lily Par- 
low, loved her still, but the little silver arrow thrust 
through her name ended the friendship of their girl- 
hood. 

Time passed on. The Revells lived in the old house 
in The Stroll, and Euphrosyne on the other side of the 
great world of London. 

One summer’s day, when Phosie was playing with 
little Jane in the drawing-room, a most unexpected and 
welcome guest arrived at Temple Street. Of all her 
husband’s brothers she least thought of seeing Frank, 
but oddly enough they had been talking about him that 
very day. 

Jane was sitting on the floor, playing with a Noah’s 
Ark of white wooden animals, and her mother knelt 
beside her, obeying instructions. The silk blinds were 
drawn down, and the room was pleasantly cool. 

Walter Race lay on the lounge in his favourite attitude, 
feet crossed and hands clasped behind his head, watching 
them. A new pleasure in Phosie’s society seemed to 
be slowly developing in her husband. The old careless 
words of endearment — elfin, fairy, moonbeam — ^were 
rarely on his lips at this time. She missed their sweet- 
ness, and an expression she often surprised in his eyes 
puzzled her. It was a thoughtful, questioning expres- 
sion she could not fathom. 

“ Now, the el’phants,” commanded Jane, marshalling 
her forces. And those very ugly an’mals last of 
aU.” 

“ Why do you call Mr and Mrs Noah very ugly animals, 
Jane? ” asked Phosie. 

Before Jane could give her reason, for she always had 
a reason, her father spoke. 

“There’s the bell and thundering knock!” he ex- 
claimed. “Hang it, Phosie! I don’t want to see any- 
body this afternoon. I want to have tea alone with you 
and the kiddy.” 


232 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Be quick and tell Parker Pm not at home,” answered 
his wife, flushed with pleasure at this unusual desire. 

He jumped to his feet and hurried out of the room, 
but it was too late. The door had been opened and the 
visitor admitted. 

Walter looked over the banisters, and a man who was 
standing, hat in hand, in the hall below looked up at 
him. 

The light fell full on Walter’s face, and he could see 
the stranger almost as clearly. They eyed each other 
in silence for a second. Mutual recognition flashed 
into their eyes, but there was no effusion in their greeting, 
although it was nine years since they had parted. They 
were Englishmen, and this is all that they said: 

” Is that you, Wally? ” from the stranger in the 
hall. 

” Yes. Come up, Frank!” from the man leaning 
over the banisters. 

Phosie had heard the voices and scrambled to her 
feet, full of excitement and surprise. 

She stared in amazement at Frank Race when he 
first entered the room, her husband’s arm locked in his. 
He closely resembled Walter in height and colouring, 
but he was a broader, heavier man; his thick hair grew 
low on his forehead; a well-cut beard did not hide his 
massive, but firmly modelled jaw; his blue eyes were 
small and twinkling. 

There was something of the freshness of three thousand 
miles of salt water about him, for he had landed the pre- 
vious night, and he gave the impression of vigour, good- 
temper and rude health. 

“Here’s Frank, Phosie!” said Walter, slapping him 
on the back. “ Dear old Frank! this is my wife.” 

Phosie recovered from her surprise, and the new- 
comer, grasping both her hands, looked down into her 
eager face with pleasure and admiration. 

“Thank you! Thanks!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t 


FRANK RACE’S STORY 


233 

expect such a welcome. How good it is of you, Wally! 
Both of you.’* 

Phosie, with a sudden impulse, stood on tiptoe and gave 
him a kiss. 

“ I’ve so looked forward to seeing you, Frank,” she 
said. 

Frank was too grateful to answer, and, with char- 
acteristic bluntness, changed the subject. 

“ Is this your little girl, Walter? My word! She’s 
a daisy! Will you come and speak to your Uncle Frank, 
honey? ” 

Jane, who had been an interested observer of the scene, 
advanced slowly, studying the big man so like her 
father. She permitted him to swing her up in the air, 
for it was a delightful, airy sensation, and when he put 
her down she smiled graciously. 

” I shall call you Uncle Bill,” said Jane. 

“ Why will you call me that? ” asked Frank Race, 
passing his hand over her dark, wavy hair. 

” It is a jolly name,” she replied. “ I think you are 
a jolly man.” 

” I almost told the servant we were not at home! ” 
said Walter. ” What would you have done, old boy? ” 

“ Waited on the doorstep, Wally.” 

“Have you written to your other brothers yet?” 
asked Phosie. 

“ Not yet. I mean to give them a surprise, but of 
course I came to your husband first. We were always 
pals, Wally and I.” 

“ Of course you will stop with us,” said Walter. “ I'm 
not going to let John or Leo take possession of you.” 

“ What does sister Phosie say? ” asked Frank. 

“ Sister Phosie will be only too delighted,” she re- 
plied. 

“ Us will be on’y too delighted,” added Jane, who 
usually acted as her mother’s echo. 

Frank Race was given the spare room overlooking 


234 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


the tiles and chimneys, where he sighed for the buoyant 
winds and open skies of fair Ontario. He and Phosie 
became great friends. 

Walter, after a long period of ease, was troubled again 
over business affairs. His wife had relinquished any 
hope of his confidence; her questions at first had an- 
noyed, and afterwards depressed, him. She was quick 
to adapt herself, in that as in everything else, to his 
wishes. 

Frank, who was both shrewd and observant, failed to 
understand the attitude of his brother. He could not 
be accused of neglecting Phosie, but he treated her 
very much as he treated the child. She was his pro- 
perty, bound to amuse him, a somewhat expensive 
luxury perhaps, but one that certainly did him credit. 

One day, when Frank Race had been their guest for 
about six weeks, he was alone with Phosie for the whole 
evening, Walter having telegraphed that he was dining 
with Mr Carl Stratton. 

It was a chilly, wet night, although August was still 
young, and they abandoned the idea of going out. 
Frank had just returned from a week-end at his brother 
John’s house, and he entertained Phosie with char- 
acter sketches of the people he had met. 

They talked and laughed, well pleased with each other’s 
society, during dinner, but Frank became thoughtful as 
the hour grew later. Phosie, accustomed to her husband’s 
changeable moods, did not worry him with senseless 
conversation. Her own embroidery held her attention, 
for she happened to be working against time to com- 
plete a birthday present for Mrs Edmund Race. 

Frank smoked his pipe in silence for a long while, 
his heavy face set and gloomy. The idea came into 
Phosie’s head, as she glanced at him, that he would be 
a terrible man roused to anger, a murderous man if he 
lost his self-control. For the minute he lost all resem- 
blance, in her eyes, to her husband. He was repugnant 


FRANK RACE’S STORY 


235 

to her with his dark frown and big, sullen jaw, but even 
as the thought took shape he met her eyes and she was 
ashamed of it. His kind, genial expression returned 
and he smiled at her affectionately. 

“ You’ve been awfully good to me, Phosie,” he said. 
“ I admire you more than Alicia or John’s wife, and I 
like you better than the whole pack of ’em put to- 
gether.” 

“ I don’t think it is respectful to call your sisters-in- 
law a pack! ” she laughed. 

He did not answer. He was busy with his own 
thoughts. 

“Phosie!” he exclaimed, and the sharpness of the 
tone made her drop her work and give him her whole 
attention. “Phosie, can you keep a secret? It seems 
to me you’re different from most women. I don’t think 
you chatter.” 

“ On the contrary, Frank, I am always chattering. 
But I am sure I can keep a secret.” 

“ Perhaps I shouldn’t call it a secret,” he went on 
slowly. “ I should like to tell you about my life in 
Canada. I feel that I can trust you, my dear little 
sister.” 

Phosie laid aside her work and looked at him atten- 
tively. She had a strange sense of foreboding, a vague 
premonition of what he was going to tell her. He began 
with carefully considered words, soon forgotten in his 
natural bluntness. 

“You know I had rather a hard time when I first went 
out — ‘ tough ’ as they say West — for I was quite unfitted 
for the life I had to lead. I got into a scrape at home 
and they packed me off. It was in the days when 
people looked on Canada as a dumping ground for un- 
desirable younger sons. 

“At first I was wretched. Wretched! I shall never 
understand why I didn’t hang myself. I hated the 
people and the climate and the food and the whole 


236 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

darned business. You know I was only a lad of 
twenty. 

A man with whom I crossed gave me some work to 
do in his factory at Montreal, clerking, but I found it 
dull and only stopped with him about six months. I 
must have been an ungrateful little brute in those 
days. Then I tried my luck in Ottawa, then Toronto, 
then Hamilton — in fact, all the big cities in that part 
of Ontario have had the honour of employing my ser- 
vices at one time or another. I managed to earn a very 
fair living on the whole — " 

“ In what way? ” interrupted Phosie. 

He laughed. 

“ All sorts of ways, my dear. I was on the road 
for a time as a ‘ drummer,’ that’s a commerical traveller 
you know; then I had a very good job as assistant 
manager of a vinegar factory — I know all about vinegar, 
Phosie — and I’ve served in a dry goods store and even 
worked on the railway. I put in one season in a liunber 
camp in Quebec, and I had the time of my life ranching 
in Alberta. Can you picture me as a ‘ cow-puncher,’ 
Phosie? I lived in the saddle, and I wish to Heaven 
I’d never come East again. But I returned to Ontario 
some years ago, almost as poor as when I first landed. 

“ I couldn’t make up my mind what to do, so I deter- 
mined to take it easy during the hot weather, for it was 
the beginning of July, and make my money last out till 
the Fall. 

“ I had landed up at a dull little town where I knew I 
could five cheaply. It was a deadly dull little town, 
called Cooling River, with one hotel on the main street. 
I boarded at this hotel, and it was there I met the inevit- 
able woman. Woman! She didn’t live to be a woman. 
She was just a slip of a girl. Strange little being with 
wonderful eyes! I can’t describe her, Phosie. I never 
understood her. She was the hotel people’s daughter — a 
spoilt child. 


FRANK RACE’S STORY 


237 

" Her mother was a poor, worn creature, with the same 
delicate features and dark eyes. They were extraordin- 
arily like each other, and it troubled me from the first, 
for the mother looked as if Death had got her by the 
wrist, dragging her away. The girl, in spite of her 
youth and bloom, had the same narrow chest and pale lips. 

“We were always together, da}^ after day, and I got 
to love her desperately — desperately ! That’s the word. 
I would have done anything in the world to make her 
happy. I wanted to be married at once, for her sake 
more than my own, to take her away from the dull little 
town, which she hated, to the golden West. She might 
have lived in California. I might have saved her.” 

He stopped speaking, shading his eyes from the light. 
Phosie drew nearer to him with the sincere sympathy 
that needs no words. After a few minutes he continued 
his story. 

“ I was at my wits’ end to make some money. There 
was nothing to be done in Cooling River, and I hated 
the thought of leaving Mehala. Our days together 
were so beautiful, sometimes on the river in our canoes, 
sometimes in the maple woods. It was at the end of 
September, just when everything was turning golden 
for the Fall, that I saw an opportunity of making a 
fortune. What a fool I was! 

“One evening, when Mehala and I were strolling 
home, we stopped to look at a small poster in the front 
window of a grocery store. Anything new attracts 
one’s attention in a one-horse town like Cooling River. 
This poster announced a concert at the town, to be given 
the following week. 

“ Mehala clapped her hands with delight. I can see 
her now 1 Of course I promised on the spot to take her 
to the concert. I bought a couple of tickets and I don’t 
think we talked of anything else. 

“You know they call every kind of show a ' concert 
in Canada, but there wasn't very much music about 


238 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

this one. It was given by three people, an actor and 
his wife, who both sang, and a young fellow who was 
the manager.” 

Frank Race was not looking at Phosie as he talked, 
or he would have seen how intensely his story interested 
her. She hung on his words. 

“ These people arrived in Cooling River on the day 
of the concert,” he went on. ” Of course they put 
up at the hotel, and I sat opposite to them at dinner. 
We dined at the unearthly hour of half-past twelve in 
the morning. The actor was an old, clever-looking 
chap, but I guessed at once that he was in the habit of 
raising his elbow. His wife was a pretty little shrew 
who kept him in fairly good order. The manager I 
took to be little more than a boy, for he looked much 
younger than he really was, with a fine fresh colour, 
clear eyes, and no end of nerve.” 

” Do you remember his name? ” asked Phosie, in a 
voice which trembled. 

Frank Race gave an ugly laugh. 

'‘Remember his name? Yes! It was Revell — 
Jules Revell — the damned scoundrel! ” 

The colour rushed into his listener’s face, and he 
thought she was offended at his violent words, but she 
checked his apology with an impatient gesture and told 
him to go on. 

” I made friends with this Revell at dinner. How 
he could talk! I’ve never heard his equal, and that’s 
saying a good deal for a man who has been ‘ on the road.’ 
We spent the afternoon together and I helped him fix 
up the platform for the show. 

“At supper he was introduced to Mehala and her 
mother and they both liked him. He was a born 
flatterer. The concert was quite a success, for the hall 
was packed, and Revell cleared over forty dollars. 

“ It seemed to me a very easy way of earning money, 
and I told him so, half in joke, when we were all sitting 


FRANK RACE’S STORY 


239 


together in the hotel parlour afterwards. He agreed, 
and asked me why I didn’t go in for it. Mehala clapped 
her hands again — it was a pretty little trick of hers — 
and said I could sing and recite better than anybody 
she had ever heard. There was an old square piano 
in the room, and Revell insisted on hearing me. We’d 
got a stock of old music, and Mehala had learned to 
play my accompaniments. I sang half a dozen times, 
then I recited, then Mehala sang, then we tried a duet. 
It was a very jolly evening, and before we parted I had 
half promised to invest my last dollars in the Revell- 
Race Imperial Concert Party — Jules made up the name 
on the spot — on sharing terms. 

“By the following morning the scheme had lost some 
of its glamour, but Mehala implored me not to give it 
up. She was sick of Cooling River and her quiet home 
life. Revell had bewitched her. She knew nothing 
of the world and firmly believed all his fairy stories. 

“ He stopped at our town, having a vacant week, and 
did everything in his power to win me over. I confess 
I liked him. He was full of life, and ingenuously frank 
and self-reliant. Our friendship grew in leaps and 
bounds, but I felt that I couldn’t leave Mehala, and what 
was the alternative? 

“ We must be married at once and I must take her 
with me. Phosie! I know what you are going to say. 
It was foolish, inconsiderate, wrong! I had no money, 
and I was condemning her to the hardships and dis- 
comforts of touring the country with a second-rate show. 
True! But you can't be more indignant with me than 
I am with myself. I did it, but God knows I’ve been 
punished more than I deserve.” 

“ I am not indignant with you, dear Frank,” said 
Phosie, gently. “ I am so sorry for you.” 

“ We kept our plans from Mehala’s parents,” Frank 
Race continued. “ It was a mean thing to do, but I 
knew they would never give their consent. We didn’t 


240 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


even tell Revell until it was over. He was intensely 
surprised, but I remember how he wrung my hand and 
wished me joy. The old man at Cooling River was very 
generous and they both forgave us, but Tm afraid 
it helped to kill the poor mother. She nev^ saw Mehala 
again. 

“ The Imperial Concert Party was very successful, 
thanks to Revell, and I was very happy with my little 
girl. I soon found out she didn’t love me as I had 
imagined, but she was always sweet and gentle. We 
made money and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Revell 
seemed to grow more and more attached to me, for he 
was always in our company, but I noticed that Mehala 
didn’t care for him. 

“Their manner to each other changed. At first they 
had been great friends, but she grew silent and nervous, 
and Revell treated her with absolute indifference. 
Without actual words he made me understand that my 
wife was antagonistic to him, and he was always hinting 
I had thrown myself away. 

So our life together went on for six months — six 
months ! — and then — then — ” 

He broke off abruptly, rose to his feet and took a few 
quick turns up and down the room. 

Phosie’s eyes followed his movements, but her thoughts 
were in the past. She saw the well-remembered room 
in the old house at The Stroll, and Jules Revell, in a 
passion that had frightened her, ramming the torn 
photographs into the fire. 

Frank Race threw himself into his chair, started to 
re-light his pipe, but laid it aside. It was several minutes 
before he spoke. 

“ I suppose you guess the end,” he said bitterly. 
“You are not so blind as I was. You don’t know what 
it is to be the husband of a woman one trusts — loves! ” 

Again he was silent. Her restraining hand laid on 
his seemed to calm him. 


FRANK RACE’S STORY 


241 


It all happened in a couple of weeks, Phosie,’* he 
said, with extraordinary simplicity. “ He took her 
away from me — forced her — ^persuaded her to go — one 
night after the performance. I followed them, but 
there was no clue. I was dazed. Confounded! I 
think I was out of my mind. I hoped to murder him. 
I can’t tell you about it — let it pass — you understand — ” 

*‘Yes! Yes!” 

“When I found her she was alone — alone, Phosie! 
— penniless, heart-broken, in a wretched little room, 
with the plaster in great patches off the walls and ceiling. 
It was a beggarly hotel at a town off the railway line. 
She was cold — I felt her little feet — the brute to desert 
her, the brute! We just looked at each other and she 
said, ‘ Oh, Frank! Frank!’ Nothing else. She never 
asked me to forgive her. There was no need. I just 
put out my arms and she — ” 

He stopped altogether. Phosie’s hand gripped his, 
and then relaxed. She rose and walked to the other 
side of the room, turning her back on him. She gave 
him time to recover his self-control. After a few seconds 
he called her back. 

“ My wife died at Cooling River,” he said quietly. 
“ Her father never knew what had happened. She 
couldn’t have lived, they told us, under any circum- 
stances. The old man and I grew very near to each 
other in our sorrow. He’s a good man. I shall go to 
see him, the first thing, when I get back.” 

“ Are you going back? ” 

“Yes, Phosie, very soon. All this happened years 
ago. I’ve schooled myself not to think about it. Time 
and courage heal our wounds, but I find I must live a 
life of action. I can’t afford to brood. My salvation 
lies in hard work.” 

Phosie was half afraid of the question that rose to 
her lips, but she was impelled to ask it. 

“ Have you seen Jules Revell since — ” 

16 


242 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Never! ” he interrupted quickly. ** But when I do 
—if I do—” 

There was no need to complete the sentence. Phosie 
thought of the world of London, with its endless streets 
and myriad crowds. Would they ever meet? 

From that night she was haunted by the shadow of 
a great terror. Frank Race's story had given it birth. 
It grew with the days — ^monstrous, vague, obscure. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A TRIFLE, AND THE INTRODUCTION OF MR BOYTON 



HOSIE, I want to speak to you. I have to ask 


-L a favour. It’s only a trifle, but it’s rather 
important.” 

Phosie looked up from the floor, where she was kneeling 
in front of her wardrobe, as her husband entered the 
room. 

It was the day after Frank Race’s story had been 
told. She was still haunted by its sad inconsequence, 
its lack of detail, and its revelation of the villainy of 
Jules Revell. 

After a listless morning she was trying to occupy her 
mind with an inspection and re-arrangement of her 
clothes and trinkets, ably assisted by her daughter. She 
had finished her embroidery the previous night, after part- 
ing with Frank. 

The bed was strewn with finery, and Jane, wearing 
a pink silk dressing- jacket over her pinafore and a wreath 
of artificial flowers on her head, was admiring herself in 
a long glass. 

Walter sat down by the dressing-table, with masculine 
indifference to the prettiness surrounding him. He 
looked tired and pale, but as he had not returned home 
imtil midnight his wife concluded that that was the 
reason. 

” What is it, dear? ” she said, looking through a box 
of gloves with a thoughtful face. ” Here’s a pair for you 
to play with, Jane.” 

” Put ’em down,” said Jane. “ I’m so busy.” 


244 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“Now do pay a little attention to what I am going 
to say, Phosie,” began Walter. “ As I told you just now 
it’s only a trifle, but it’s important.” 

“ Yes, I’m listening,” said Phosie. 

He fidgeted with a scent-bottle on the dressing- 
table, twisting the glass stopper round and round, 
uncertain how to present his case. He was going to 
talk about money, and it was a little awkward in the face 
of the persistence with which he had refused to confide 
in his wife. 

He wondered how she would take it. He was in no 
mood for reproaches and dreaded that her good-temper 
would be ruffled. 

Phosie had too much character to be placid at any 
time, but then, again, he had never seen her really angry. 
For all his belief in the devotion of women, he had not 
lived so many years in the world without discovering 
that they could be mean, mercenary, wantonly ex- 
travagant. 

The very room in which he sat usually suggested 
his wife’s personal daintiness, but to-day it only gave 
an impression of the careless spending of money. He 
forgot that he was always urging her to spend, and that 
more than half the costly trifles she prized because they 
were his own gifts. 

“ Phosie, I want to borrow your money,” he said at 
last, making a blunt plunge into his subject. 

She laid aside the pile of gloves, got to her feet, and 
sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at him in a 
puzzled manner. 

“ Borrow my money? ” she repeated. “ How do you 
mean, Walter? It’s Mr Revell’s money you’re speaking 
of, isn’t it? ” 

“ Of course it is,” he answered impatiently. 

“ Do you want the capital, the whole of it, love? 
That seems so strange, because I am accustomed to 
getting the interest only.” 


A TRIFLE 


245 


“ It isn’t tied up, you know,” he said quickly. ” You 
are perfectly free to take possession of it all in a lump 
if you choose.” 

“ I understand that,” said Phosie. “ Mr Faraday 
explained it to me when I went to his office the first 
time.” 

“You hardly get a pound a week, do you? ” her hus- 
band continued. “ Now, if I could show you a way to 
get a big interest on your capital — a thing that’s boimd 
to turn out weU — ” 

“ My dear boy, don’t talk to me like a stockbroker! ” 
interrupted Phosie, with a laugh. “Tell me simply 
what you want me to do, but remember that it is all I 
possess in my own right, and I consider myself respon- 
sible for Little Gus.” 

Walter Race chose to take this ill. 

“ Phosie, don’t talk about your ‘ own right ’ and ‘ being 
responsible ’ for other people. I’m your husband, you 
know, and I don’t think you need be afraid I shall shirk 
my duties.” 

“ I’m sure you’ll never desert me or your ‘ che-ild,’ ” 
said Phosie, laughing at his virtuously indignant tone, 
but instantly serious again when she saw he was really 
annoyed. “ I wanted to ask you whether it isn’t a 
little foolish, dear, to take one’s money out of a safe 
investment on the mere chance of getting a dangerously 
high interest? ” 

“ Good heavens, Phosie! If I’d got the money myself 
should I ask you? ” he said, standing up and pushing 
his chair violently away. “ But I haven’t got it; I’m 
in a hole. I’m tied to Carl Stratton hand and foot.” 

“ Ah! ” cried Phosie. 

She had always distrusted Carl Stratton. Her husband 
had assured her, some time back, that their business 
relations were about to end. 

“ I can’t explain it all,” he continued, walking up and 
down the room. “ But I know there’s a way out of the 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


246 

difficulty. I swear I’ve got a chance to save myself, 
but I must have a little ready money. What do you 
say? Are you going to help me? ” 

He stopped abruptly in front of her. She looked up 
into his face perplexedly. How worn and ill he looked! 
The severity of his fine features was accentuated by 
dark lines under the eyes and round the puckered lips. 

“ Of course I will help you, Walter,” said Phosie. 
” But I think I ought to consult Mr Faraday — ” 

” My dear Phosie,” he interrupted pettishly, ” all 
Faraday has to do is to obey your instructions.” 

” I should like to ask his advice,” she went on, but 
again he interrupted her. 

” So you consider him more trustworthy, more likely 
to look after your interest than I am? Perhaps you’re 
right, but it isn’t complimentary to me, is it? ” 

” Dear, you mistake me,” said Phosie, gently. “You 
know I rely on you entirely. I will go to Mr Faraday 
to-morrow morning. I am sure it will be all right, but 
I wish — I do wish you had had nothing more to do with 
Carl Stratton, Walter.” 

Oh, it’s too late to talk about that,” he said angrily, 
and went out of the room. 

Phosie sat still, absently pleating a ribbon between 
her fingers, until Jane climbed on to the bed beside 
her. 

” I wis’ you’d speak to Biddy and Winkey, momma,” 
she said. ” They are very naughty, both of ’em.” 

Biddy and Winkey, the make-believe pet oyster and 
chicken of Phosie’s childhood, had grown equally dear 
to Jane. Phosie had forgotten their imaginary exist- 
ence for years, but the coming of her own child had 
revived the memories of her lonely life in Airy Street. 

Jane found her mother a most interesting companion. 
They played together and told each other stories. Walter 
was not quite of their world, although they graciously 
permitted him to romp with them occasionally. 


A TRIFLE 


247 


Mr Faraday received Phosie, when she called at his 
office on the following morning, with old-fashioned 
courtesy. He had been one of Henry Revell’s few in- 
timate friends. 

Mr Faraday was a quiet, rather pompous man, with 
a naturally shrewd, alert expression in spite of the too, 
too solid flesh of his big, clean-shaven face. He spoke 
deliberately, weighing his words, turning them over in 
his mouth as it were, as if they possessed the flavour of 
good wine. 

Having listened to Phosie’s business with interest, he 
came to the conclusion that she was acting very foolishly, 
and told her so in a well-chosen, long sentence. She 
did not miss the implication. 

“You see, I must be guided by my husband, “ she 
said. 

“ I quite understand your position,’^ agreed Mr 
Faraday. “ But the whole business gives one the im- 
pression of uncertainty, instability, a lack of the capacity 
to grasp the elemental facts of finance, if you will per- 
mit me to say so, on the part of Mr Race. He appears 
to have placed his affairs in the hands of a friend, and 
it is undoubtedly by the advice of this friend that your 
little fortune is also to be invested — in something, some- 
where.” 

Mr Faraday shrugged his shoulders expressively. 

“ I don’t know whether Walter is still acting on this 
friend’s advice,” observed Phosie. 

“You can take it as read, Mrs Race,” answered 
Mr Faraday. “ A friend of this description is like, 
if you will permit me to make use of the word, a 
limpet. A limpet. He sticks. I know these busi- 
ness friends of rich young men. I have come across 
any number of similar cases in the course of a long 
and, I hope you will pardon me for saying, singu- 
larly wide and varied experience of life. If it were 
not for being guilty of an absurd exaggeration I 


248 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

should say that such friends begin their careers as 
the aforesaid limpets and invariably grow into social 
sharks.” 

Phosie looked at him helplessly. 

” But I 2un afraid I have no alternative. I must do 
as my husband wishes.” 

“ Of course it is entirely your own affair, my dear 
lady,” said Mr Faraday. ” But I think if I were to talk 
the matter over with Mr Race — ” 

” I have promised to settle it at once,” said Phosie. 
” So I am afraid I must ask you to let me have the money 
as quickly as you can, Mr Faraday.” 

He smiled indulgently, for she spoke as if her little 
capital were in his waistcoat pocket. He was always 
indulgent to a pretty woman. 

” I regret it,” he said, in dismissing the subject, and 
I fear that you will regret it too.” 

” I shall never regret pleasing Walter,” she thought. 

“Don’t go, I beg, one moment!” exclaimed Mr 
Faraday, as Phosie rose, checking her with a stately 
wave of the hand. “ I am anxious to introduce my 
partner to you, Mrs Race. We were talking about you 
only yesterday. I believe he was acquainted with some 
members of your family.” 

Phosie resumed her seat. She instantly thought of 
her father’s family. It was hard to imagine any con- 
nection between the partner of this pompous gentleman 
and poor Eddy Moore, the Human Eel. 

Mr Faraday touched his bell. 

“ Will you inform Mr Boyton that Mrs Race is here, 
and I shsdl be glad if he can spare us a few minutes,” 
said Mr Faraday to the attendant clerk. 

The clerk vanished, Mr Faraday talked about the 
salubrious weather for a minute or two, and then the 
door opened to admit Mr Boyton. 

Mr Boyton was a thin, wiry, little man, the top of 
his sleek head hardly reaching to his partner’s shoulder. 


A TRIFLE 


249 


His bright eyes gleamed through gold-rimmed eye- 
glasses. His handshake was remarkably short and 
sharp. 

He looked at Phosie very keenly, and deliberately 
took possession of her chair, which was in shadow, 
offering her another so that she faced the light. 
She was slightly embarrassed by the kind curiosity 
of his stare. Mr Faraday glanced from one to the 
other. 

“ Do you observe any resemblance, Boyton, to the 
friend of your youth? ” he asked after a somewhat 
awkward pause. 

“ I do most decidedly! ” answered Mr Boyton, who 
snapped out his words. “ There’s a wonderful — some- 
thing, I don’t know what it is — the expression of Mrs 
Race’s face recalls the past. I think I knew your 
mother, Mrs Race.” 

“My mother! ” cried Phosie. 

She did not remember her mother, but she knew that 
her marriage with a poor acrobat had alienated the 
affection of her own people. 

“ I happened to mention, in casual conversation with 
Mr Boyton, that I believed your maiden name was 
Euphrosyne Moore,” said Mr Faraday. “ I really 
cannot recollect how the topic originated. Mr Boyton’s 
attention was arrested by Euphrosyne as being a most 
uncommon Christian name — to speak more correctly, 
name bestowed upon a Christian. I myself had never 
met with another Euphrosyne, but it appeared that Mr 
Boyton’s experience differed from mine. He had known 
a young lady of that name before he was articled to 
Freeman, Lidgate & Freeman. An excellent practice, 
by the way, Messrs Freeman, Lidgate & Freeman. I 
recollect old John Freeman — ” 

It is impossible to say how long Mr Faraday’s soliloquy 
would have continued if his partner, stiU gazing at 
Phosie, had not interrupted him. 


250 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


We lived next door to each other, your mother’s 
people and mine,” he said. '‘We were practically 
brought up together. There were nine in our family, 
two in our neighbour’s — your mother and your Uncle 
Joseph.” 

“ I never heard of my Uncle Joseph,” said Phosie. 
“ I don’t even know my mother’s name before she was 
married.” 

"Good Heavens!” ejaculated Mr Faraday. 

" It was Ridgeway — Euphrosyne Ridgeway,” answered 
Mr Boyton. " Your Uncle was Joseph Ridgeway. He 
went to live in the south of France several years before 
I was articled.” 

"Joseph Ridgeway,” repeated Phosie, thought- 
fully. 

She had heard that name before. It sounded strangely 
familiar. She had a hazy remembrance of forming the 
words on paper. She saw them, in her mind’s eye, 
written on an envelope — Joseph Ridgeway — 

Ah! It all came back to her in a flash of thought. 
Joseph Ridgeway! That was the name of one of Mr 
Re veil’s regular correspondents, the " Dear Joe ” of 
numberless letters she had written to his dictation 
during her life in The Stroll. She had seen " Dear 
Herbert,” his old friend from Surrey, a short time before 
Mr Re veil’s death, but " Dear Joe ” had long ago passed 
out of her thoughts. 

" My uncle! ” she cried, and briefly told them of the 
strange coincidence. 

" Good Heavens ! ” said Mr Faraday for the second 
time. 

" He is still in France, but I believe he intends to return 
very shortly,” said Mr Boyton. "lam told by mutual 
friends that he means to live in England. His business 
has greatly enlarged during the past five years.” 

"Have you mentioned the business, Mr Boyton?” 
asked Mr Faraday. 


A TRIFLE 


251 


“ He is a glove manufacturer,” replied his partner, 
“ A very successful man. His partner. Monsieur 
Mercier, will remain in France. Joseph Ridgeway is 
much older than I am. Your mother and I were more 
of an age. We were rather attached to each other at 
one time — at least, I hoped she was becoming attached 
to me. I was always attached to her. Well! Well! 
Young people are generally foolish. Your grand- 
parents were a little too strict with Euphrosyne.” 

Phosie started. It was quite bewildering to sud- 
denly realise the possession of so many new relations. 

“Are my grandparents living? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, no,” replied Mr Boyton. “ They are both 
dead.” 

“ The common lot — ^regrettable, but inevitable,” 
murmured Mr Faraday. 

“ Did you know my father? ” asked Phosie, eagerly. 

A peculiar smile wrinkled Mr Boyton’s thin lips. 

“ I only saw your father once on the stage. He was — 
er — a very limber man.” 

“ Yes,” said Phosie, “ he was known as the Human 
Eel.” 

“ God bless my soul! ” gasped Mr Faraday. 

“ My father was not a human freak,” Phosie hastened 
to explain. “ That was only his professional name. 
He was a contortionist.” 

“ Very interesting, I am sure,” murmured Mr Faraday, 
staring. 

Phosie could not resist the temptation of adding to 
his knowledge of her father’s work. 

“ You must not confuse contortion with leg-mania,” 
she said gravely, “ although they are generally studied 
at the same time. My father could do ‘ full bending ’ 
and ‘ posturing ’ with equal ease. It was as easy for 
him to hold his head in the small of his back as it is 
for most men to make a bow. Have you ever tried it, 
Mr Faraday? ” 


252 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Do you mean have I tried making a bow? he 
asked, with a slight bend at what his tailor called his 
waist. 

“ No, bending backwards into a hoop,” said Phosie. 
“ It’s much more difficult than it looks. So is high 
kicking. That’s considered the ladies’ branch of the 
business, you know.” 

Mr Faraday was obviously shocked. Phosie spared 
him any further details. She repeated her original 
question to Mr Boyton. 

” Your father and I did not meet,” he answered. 
” I never saw your mother after she left home to go on 
the stage. Her marriage, you probably know, was 
hardly — ^hardly — ” 

” I understand,” said Phosie, helping him out of a 
difficult sentence. ” My mother’s family greatly dis- 
approved of my poor father. But we loved him, she 
and I. I remember him with pride. He was gentle, 
good, chivalrous.” 

” I am ready to believe it,” replied Mr Boyton. 
” Time, my dear Mrs Race, widens one’s outlook and 
alters one’s opinions. Let me see! I met my wife 
six months after I heard of your mother’s marriage, 
and Mrs Boyton and I were married within the year.” 

“You must meet Mrs Boyton,” put in Mr Faraday 
to Phosie. “ Charming lady! One of the most spirited 
controversialists with whom I have ever had the pleasure 
of differing. Very strong views, to be sure.” 

Mr Boyton gave a little sigh. 

“ I shall be very happy to introduce you to my wife,” 
he assured Phosie. “ I don’t want to lose sight of the 
daughter of my old friend. Would you like to com- 
municate with your uncle, Mr Ridgeway? We have 
mutual friends who are always in touch with him.” 

“ I would rather wait until he returns to England,” 
said Phosie. “ He may not care to know me.” 

“ If once he meets you, my dear Mrs Race, such a 


A TRIFLE 


253 

supposition would be simply ridiculous,” said Mr Fara- 
day, with laboured gallantry. 

Phosie answered with a smile, and rose. She apolo- 
gised for wasting so much of the partners’ busy morning. 

” Not at all!” said Mr Boyton, cordially. “I am 
delighted to meet you. It has reminded me of my boy- 
hood. You must come to see us with your husband. 
Mrs Boyton will be very pleased, I’m sure.” 

“Permit me!” said Mr Faraday, opening the door. 
“ Good-bye, my dear Mrs Race. I will attend to that 
little matter for you immediately. You may rely on me. 
Good morning.” 

Mr Boyton looked after her thoughtfully. She was 
very like the Euphrosyne of his youth. He sighed 
again, and returned slowly to his own room. 

Mr Faraday sank into his easy-chair with a slightly- 
annoyed expression. 

“ The daughter of a Human Eel! ” he said to himself. 
“What an extraordinary world this is! And she 
wanted me to see if I could put my head into the small 
of my own back! I’ve never been asked such a thing 
by a client in the whole course of my professional career.” 

Phosie hurried home, her mind full of the strange 
coincidence of Mr Revell’s old correspondent proving to 
be her own uncle. 

She was anxious to teU Walter that she had fulfilled 
her promise. It was a disappointment to find the house 
empty. Her husband had left no message. There 
were a couple of letters on the hall table. One was a 
note from Frank, saying he would not be in to luncheon. 
The other was an affectionate scrawl from Miss Sapio, 
announcing the date of the production of Hewett Addi- 
son’s latest play — Phosie must keep herself free — 
why hadn’t she popped in lately— how was darling 
Jane— poor dear old Quizzy had been very dicky with 
bronchitis, but was on the mend — what had become of 
Wally — love and kisses from her devoted Flo, 


254 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


Phosie went into the dining-room and summoned 
Jane. She felt depressed and anxious. Walter had 
been very moody at breakfast, and she had no idea 
where he had gone. She found it impossible to shake 
off the haunting dread of her brother-in-law meeting 
Jules Revell. 

Then she thought of her talk with Mr Boyton, and in 
the sudden entrance of Jane, with a hand outstretched 
on either side showing she was accompanied by Biddy 
and Winkey, she saw herself as a little child, all uncon- 
scious of the deep, confusing shadows which we call the 
realities of life. 

Jane resembled her father too closely to personate 
for long the little Euphrosyne of Airy Street. She 
perched on her mother’s knee, in her own serious way, 
and began to smooth the lines of troubled thought out 
of her brow with the palms of her hands, accompanied 
by murmuring little sounds of wordless love. 

Phosie was soothed by her touch, strengthened by 
her soft voice, but she felt, at the same time, utterly 
lonely. It was a feeling that had swept over her now 
and again in the early days of her marriage. 

What had she known of the man who was her husband? 
They were strangers to each other! What did she know 
of him after eight years? 

She glanced round the familiar room. The decora- 
tions, the furniture, the books, the pictures, even the 
flowers on the table, were chosen to suit his tastes. The 
colour and style of her own dress, the arrangement of 
her hair, were designed to win his approval. Her 
whole life was entirely ruled according to his measure. 

An observer of husbands and wives will understand 
the position when it is said that Walter always spoke 
of “my” house, and “my” servants, and “my” 
plans. He had yet to learn the value of the word “ our.” 

Phosie was soon ashamed of her momentary aloof- 
ness. This was her own home. Her own dear home. 


A TRIFLE 


255 


They sat down at the table side by side. Jane, 
standing up for a second on the bar of her high chair, 
peered into the dish. Its contents met with her highest 
approval, which she signified by folding her hands 
with a sigh of satisfaction, and fixing her eyes on her 
mother as she adapted her grace to the occasion : 

“For what I am ’bout to receive may the Lord make 
me truly thank you! ” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


AT THE THEATRE 

D uring the weeks that preceded the production of 
Hewett Addison’s new play, after her interview 
with the lawyers, Phosie saw very little of her husband. 

Although he had abandoned late breakfasts, always 
rising before nine, she had no opportunity of talking to 
him in the morning. He read the paper while he ate, 
and rarely spoke, leaving the conversation to his brother, 
Phosie and the child. He usually lunched at his club, 
dined four or five times a week with Carl Stratton, and 
was too tired or depressed at night to discuss any subject 
whatever. 

Often and often, when his anxieties were forgotten 
in restless sleep, his wife would lie awake through the 
quiet hours, not unhappy, not afraid, but conscious 
of a gathering storm, wondering how he would meet it, 
and praying that she might be able to help him in her 
great love and loyalty. 

Mr Revell’s money — ^she always called it Mr Revell’s 
money — was in Walter’s hands, in spite of Mr Faraday’s 
protests, and, having once given it up, Phosie dismissed 
all thoughts of it from her mind. 

She was sorry to be obliged, for the time being, to 
reduce her weekly allowance to Little Gus, but fortun- 
ately his small salary amply supplied his simple needs. 
Gus hated spending money on himself. The horrible 
phantom of destitution was in his blood, for he had 
been born in want and misery, and all Phosie’s affection 
could not set him free. 


256 


AT THE THEATRE 


257 


Little Gus was always afraid; afraid of poverty, 
afraid of illness, afraid of accidents, afraid of strangers. 
For a long time he was even afraid of Jane. Feeling 
her power, she used it like a kind autocrat, and he became 
her devoted slave. 

On the morning of the production of Addison’s play, 
when they were sitting at the breakfast- table, Walter 
announced that he would be unable to go to the theatre 
at night. 

“ Oh, Walter, how disappointing! ” exclaimed Phosie. 
“ It is such a great event for all Mr Addison’s friends. 
You must go.” 

“Quite impossible!” he answered, irritably. “I’m 
obliged to see Stratton, and I can’t get out of it.” 

“ What an extraordinary way Stratton does his 
business,” observed Frank Race, who was quartering 
an apple for Jane. “ Can’t you see him in the morning 
instead of at night? ” 

“He is out of town,” said Walter. “ But he expects 
to get back late this afternoon. I’m sorry, Phosie, but 
it can’t be helped. You and Frank must go without 
me and give my seat to somebody else.” 

“ I should like Uncle Bill to stop at home with me, 
an’ momma, an’ mine Gussy, but I think I don’t want 
daddy,” said Jane, frankly. 

Walter gave a laugh and rose from his chair. 

“ They’ll all stop at home with you another day, 
babs,” he said, and stooped to kiss her in passing. 

“ If you really can’t go, Walter, I should like to take 
Gus,” said Phosie, calling after him as he left the room. 

“ Very well, I don’t care,” he answered, shutting the 
door. 

“ Walter isn’t well,” said Frank. 

“ He makes me more and more anxious every day,” 
said Phosie. 

“ I think daddy is on’y cross,” Jane observed, eating 
her apple. 

17 


258 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

“ Will your friend Gus appreciate a first night? '' 
asked Frank, doubtfully. 

“ Dear Little Gus! He will enjoy going out with you 
and me,” replied Phosie. 

The play was produced at one of the most popular 
theatres in the Strand. 

When the Race party arrived the house was already 
filling rapidly. Most of the people in the pit were stand- 
ing up, recognising, or pretending to recognise, cele- 
brities in the stalls. Dramatic critics shook hands with 
one another, or more frequently exchanged the silent 
greeting of a raised programme or a bored smile. There 
were a few pretty women and a great many pretty 
frocks. 

Miss Sapio, in a rose-red cloak over white satin, sat 
in Hewett Addison’s box, nodding, smiling, and kissing 
her hand to distant friends. 

Addison himself was behind the scenes. He had 
long outgrown the desire to pace the Embankment, 
ready for a fatal plunge, on the first night of a new 
play, but he still felt too nervous to watch, in his own 
words, the jury assembling before the trial began. 

Mrs Race’s three seats were at the end of the third 
row from the back of the stalls. Phosie was simply 
dressed in dark green, with a small wreath of leaves 
in her hair. Frank thought how young and pretty she 
looked. 

Tom Wainwright, the artist, who happened to be sit- 
ting two rows behind, made a sketch on the inner side 
of his programme of her graceful throat and soft coil of 
hair. 

Little Gus’s faithful eyes blinked at her through his 
spectacles. She had long personified to him the beauty 
and refinement of his narrow world. He could not ap- 
preciate many things ; he had no taste for Art; literature 
was a sealed book; music spoke to him, but it was an 
indistinct, groping language. In Euphrosyne he found 


AT THE THEATRE 


259 

the inspiration and the source of his mind’s slow de- 
velopment. 

“ I wish Walter were here! ” said Phosie more than 
once as the first act proceeded. 

It was a comedy, not one of Addison’s most original 
pieces of work, but rippling over with laughter all the 
same. The sensitive first-night audience responded to 
every line, every situation. There was a feeling of relief 
among the author’s admirers, for they felt that his 
reputation was safe. He had once again justified their 
faith. 

Phosie, who had been too anxious for her friend’s 
success to really enjoy the first act, gave herself up 
wholly to the pleaLSure of the second. It was weeks and 
weeks since she had laughed so much. 

Frank Race, to whom the author’s half-mad absurdity 
— Hewett wrote with dignified madness, a madness 
of subtle lights and shades — did not so strongly appeal, 
nevertheless was moved to unusual appreciation. 

He glanced to Phosie’s eager profile, shadowy in the 
darkened auditorium, and was struck with its quaint 
resemblance to a water-colour drawing which hung 
in Walter’s dressing-room. It had been Wainwright’s 
wedding present, painted after the first visit of Walter’s 
bride to the artist’s home. 

“ A Spirit of Mirth ” was written underneath in Wain- 
wright’s hand, but Frank had always regarded it, until 
that night, as a fanciful study for a picture of Ariel or 
Puck, for it possessed the delicacy of the first in form 
and the mockery of the second in expression. Now he 
saw that it was meant for Phosie; not a portrait for all 
who ran to read, but an artist’s conception of her happy 
nature. 

She was unconscious of her brother-in-law’s amused 
discovery. Nothing was farther from her mind than 
Wainwright’s water-colour, but Frank had the feeling 
of a boy who has found a hidden puzzle in a picture. 


26 o 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


When the lights went up he would lose it again, but for 
the minute it was clearly, sharply drawn, and the wreath 
of leaves added to the illusion. It was no longer Phosie 
beside him. It was a sprite, a wild thing of the woods 
flown into a theatre. It was Ariel with those wide, 
long-fringed lashes — no, it was Puck with those laughing, 
curving lips. 

The idle fancy pleased him for a second, after the 
fashion of idle fancies, but he found he was right at the 
end of the act. There was little resemblance, in the 
garish lights, between Phosie and the picture in her 
husband’s room. 

“ I’m glad they’ve dropped the curtain,” she ex- 
claimed, leaning back in her seat. ” I couldn’t have 
laughed much more. As Jane says, it makes ' my 
cheeks to hurt.’ ” 

“What a success! Lucky fellow!” said Frank 
Race. 

He stood up and glanced round the stalls. Half the 
men went out between the acts, but Frank and Little 
Gus remained in their seats. 

Phosie asked a question about American theatres. In 
the middle of his answer, when the stalls were refilling, 
Frank stopped short. His face changed, and he forgot 
to end his sentence. She looked at him in surprise. 

“ What is it? ” she asked. “ What are you looking 
at?” 

There was no answer, and he did not notice her touch 
on his arm. 

“ Frank!” 

She spoke to deaf ears. Puzzled and a little amused, 
Phosie seized the last second before the curtain rose 
to discover the cause of his unaccountable abstraction. 

She stood up, followed his eyes, and saw — ^Jules 
ReveU. 

He was sitting at the end of the row in front of them, 
on the opposite side of the stalls. His eyes were bent 


AT THE THEATRE 


261 


on his programme, and one hand was laid on his thick, 
dark moustache. In spite of this alteration in his appear- 
ance since last they met, for he had been clean-shaven 
in the old days, Phosie recognised him instantly. There 
was no mistaking the full, drooping eyelids ; the heavy, 
but well -shaped nose; the thick hand, with short 
fingers. 

He raised his head, as if he felt the attraction of their 
eyes, looked vaguely over the stalls, and saw them 
both. 

Then the lights went out. 

Phosie, frightened, agitated by what had passed, 
tried to read the expression of her brother-in-law’s face. 
He was staring at the stage. She touched his hand. He 
started and bent over her. 

“Frank! What is it? Whom did you see?” she 
whispered. 

“ It’s nothing — nothing! Hush! ” he answered in as 
low a tone. 

She tried to recall her absorption in the play, tried to 
join in Gus's laughter, but it was impossible, for she 
guessed what was passing through the mind of the 
man on her other side, and felt the strain of his self- 
control. 

She knew he was making up his mind what to do. 
Perhaps he was struggling to master his dormant passions 
of hate and revenge. This was her hope, her prayer, 
but she was powerless to help him. 

The mimic stage, the puppets and their cunning show- 
man, were forgotten. 

“ Frank! ” Again she ventured to speak to him, and 
again he bent down, without looking at her. 

“ You’re in trouble, dear. Stop with me — let me help 
you — ” 

“ Stop with you! ” he repeated and frowned. “ What 
do you mean? Hush! We can’t talk now.” 

What did he mean to do? Phosie asked herself the 


262 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


question again and again. He must not meet Jules 
Revell. That was the one clear point in her troubled 
reasoning. 

She did not doubt the power of her influence over 
Frank Race, if she could gain time. She knew that he 
was fond of her and believed in her judgment. 

Her own repugnance to Jules Revell was unchanged, 
but she gave no thought to it. Frank did not know they 
had ever met. Her whispered entreaties only puzzled 
and annoyed him. He was too absorbed in his own 
affairs to notice her change of manner. She laughed 
no more, and the minutes dragged. 

Frank Race could hardly keep still, although he 
forced himself to listen. Would this interminable play 
never end? Empty words — ^senseless noise — fools at 
play! 

Directly the curtain fell and the lights flashed up 
he sprang to his feet. 

“ Gus will take you home, Phosie dear. I shall follow 
you later and explain — there’s nothing the matter — 
good-bye! ” he said. 

She caught at his sleeve. 

“ Oh, Frank — a minute — ” 

“ Later! ” was all he answered, and shook her off. 

Half the people in the audience were standing 
up. The actors were responding to applause. There 
was a cry of “Author!” much clapping, and a 
little booing from the gallery. All was noise and 
confusion. 

Phosie looked across the stalls. She saw Jules Revell 
disappearing through the swing-door of an exit close 
to his seat. A few seconds later she caught a glimpse of 
Frank shouldering his way, with scant courtesy, to- 
wards another exit on his side of the theatre. Both 
doors opened on a vestibule leading by a flight of stairs 
into the entrance hall. 

Jules Revell had perhaps half a minute’s start. He 


AT THE THEATRE 263 

was the first man out of the theatre and seized upon the 
first cab. 

Frank Race was close at his heels. A dozen eager 
hands pointed out the departing cab, a dozen men had 
seen the first gentleman get in, and a dozen whistles 
and calls summoned another cab for the second gentle- 
man. Coins scattered. The hunter and his quarry 
had rushed out of the theatre and were gone before 
the remainder of the audience were fairly out of their 
seats. 

Ten minutes later Phosie and Little Gus, unable to 
quicken their pace, slowly ascended the stairs into the 
entrance hall in the midst of a throng of people. Gus 
was bewildered by her haste and agitation, but followed 
blindly and pressed after her through the main doors 
of the theatre. 

After a few minutes wasted in trying to secure a cab 
Phosie determined to walk down the Strand towards 
Charing Cross, hoping to meet with better success away 
from the crowd leaving the theatre. 

The streets were very busy. They had reached the 
corner of Trafalgar Square before seeing an empty 
hansom. Every taxi was engaged. 

“ Gus, I want you to do something for me,” she said, 
earnestly, before getting into the cab. “ Go to our house 
as quickly as you can and see Walter. If he is not in, 
wait for him. Tell him to follow me at once. I am 
going to our old house in The Stroll. You can explain 
to Walter exactly where it is. Tell him there is nothing 
the matter, but he must come. When you have given 
the message, dear, go home yourself and sleep well. 
Good-night.” 

“Can’t I do anything else, Phosie?” asked Gus, 
looking utterly miserable. “ Shall I go with you — ? ” 

“No! No! Do as I tell you. You can do nothing 
else. Good-night again. Be quick — go to Walter! ” 

She sprang into the cab, gave the address to the 


264 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

driver, and waved her hand to Little Gus, who stood at 
the edge of the pavement for several minutes staring 
after her. 

Then he remembered her words, pulled himself to- 
gether, and turned his steps towards Temple Street. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


HEWETT ADDISON’S POINT OF VIEW 

H EWETT ADDISON entertained a small party of 
intimate friends to supper, after the perform- 
ance, on the opening night of his new play. 

The successful playwright lived in Plantagenet Court, 
where Phosie and her husband had spent the first years 
of their married life. 

His chambers were in one of the old houses facing the 
river. There was only one light in the supper-room, 
hanging low over the table. The decorations and 
furniture were severely plain, for he disliked ornaments 
and cared little for pictures. 

There were no flowers on the round table, which was 
of polished oak. The coarser foods were removed, 
dessert consisting of a single dish of perfect peaches and 
nectarines. Champagne had been offered to the guests, 
but Addison himself drank water. 

He thought, as he looked at his friends, what an 
excellent cast they would make for a comedy. 

There were the manager of the theatre where his play 
had been produced and his wife — the man middle-aged, 
fluent, affable, determined, with a somewhat battered, 
but still handsome face; the woman many years his 
junior, a pretty, delicate creature, with big, beautiful 
eyes, but dangerously shrewish lips. 

An actor and his wife were the only other married 
couple. They were both playing in Addison’s piece 
the man being the old friend who was mentioned in 
265 


266 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


the tenth chapter of this story. He was slight, 
boyish, attractive, while the lady matched him as 
prettily as if they were a couple of china figures on a 
mantelpiece. They were not young, but they always 
played yoimg parts; charming people, devoted to each 
other and their children. Time had apparently passed 
them by, and it was only on very close inspection that 
one saw his fingers had cracked the fair surface of the 
little china figures into innumerable wrinkles, brushing 
away the bloom of youth. 

Two young men. Miss Sapio, and Mr Quizzical Quilter 
completed the party. 

Of the young men, one was a popular novelist, and 
the other a musical critic. Quizzy, with a great expanse 
of white waistcoat and a buttonhole, struck the incon- 
gruous note which amused his host. 

Miss Sapio had never looked more handsome. Her 
red cloak, thrown over the high back of her chair, formed 
an effective background for her white dress, splendid 
throat, and tawny hair. 

She had cried with joy at Addison’s triumph. It 
had amazed the self-possessed playwright, who took 
his success, as he would have taken failure, with un- 
moved serenity. 

“ Miss Sapio’s congratulations would hardly give me 
satisfaction,” observed the manager of the theatre, as 
they discussed Addison’s play after supper. ” Because 
she is so warm-hearted that she likes everybody to 
succeed.’ 

“So do I ! ” exclaimed his wife, but the expression 
of her thin lips belied the words they spoke so sweetly. 

‘'Well, I don’t!” said the musical critic. “There 
are scores of men I know, scores of them, who ought 
to fail. It would do them good. They deserve it. 
There’s nothing like a good failure, a howling failure, 
to show a man’s true mettle.” 

“ Do you mean it’s a good ‘ ad.’? ” asked Quizzy. 


HEWETT ADDISON 267 

“ No, I didn’t mean that at all,” said the critic, with a 
smile. 

“ Glad to hear it,” answered Quizzy. “I don’t hold 
with this new-fangled way of pushin’ yourself down 
the public’s throat. What’s the good of makin’ ’em 
s waller bad stuff? It’s the newspapers we’ve got to 
thank for that.” 

” I don’t know what you’re driving at, Quizzy,” said 
Addison. 

“ I’m drivin’ at this ridiculous modem puffin’ of the 
theatrical profession,” said Quizzy, assuming a judicial 
air. 

“ Oh, you really mustn’t run down the unfortunate 
profession, Mr Quilter,” put in the youthful-looking 
actress. “ It isn’t our fault if we are always being 
interviewed and photographed. I suppose it’s a case 
of supply and demand. The public wants that sort of 
thing, so we have to provide it.” 

“ I doubt whether the intelligent public does want it,” 
said the musical critic. 

” Where do you find the intelligent public? ” asked 
Addison. 

” At your plays, Hughie,” said Miss Sapio. 

” Is there anything more absurd than all this talk 
about young actors and actresses in London? ” said 
Quizzy, returning to his point. “ They’re not people 
of experience. They’re Society people, that’s what 
they are, with their motors and their pet dogs, and 
gettin’ married to peers — it’s sickenin’, my boy! It’s 
ruining the profession.” 

It’s generally supposed to be ruining the peerage,” 
said the manager’s wife, plaintively. 

” I don’t agree with you, madam,” said Quizzy, 
hotly. “ Our peerage can be trusted to take care of 
itself, thank God! but all that sort o’ thing turns the 
heads of the young people in the business. They won’t 
learn of their elders. They think themselves superior 


268 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


to good old seasoned actors. The public and the players 
ought to keep to their own sides of the footlights. It’s 
no good mixin’ your drinks. They spoil each other.” 

Quizzy’s solemnity was greeted with the laughter he 
expected. 

” I mean it all the same,” he concluded. 

” I agree with your point of view in many ways,” 
said Addison. ” There never was a fine actor yet who 
hadn’t a big dash of the old strolling player in his com- 
position. The methods, morals and manners of Theatre 
Royal, Back Drawing-Room, do not make for the 
greatness of dramatic art. We must have the passions 
on a big scale, even when they deign to dip under the 
lintels of our doors and sit at our ordinary dinner- 
tables.” 

” Is that a plea for melodrama, Mr Addison? ” said 
the manager’s wife again plaintively. 

” No, Mrs Fountain, it’s a protest, from Quizzy’s 
point of view, against confusing the actor with his 
part.” 

” I can’t say I see the connection,” said the novelist. 

” I suppose he means that if we have only kid-glove 
actors we shall have only kid-glove plays,” said the 
musical critic. 

The theatrical manager laughed. 

” That idea leads the way, if we are to be logical, to 
a man committing murder before he can act Macbeth, 
and only a consumptive woman being cast for La Dame 
Aux Camelias.” 

” That’s a weak argument. Fountain, for this reason,” 
replied Addison, rivalling Quizzy in solemnity. ” It 
would mean so much specialising in theatrical ranks, and 
no perfect actor is a specialist.” 

“Can you mention one in London who is not?” 
asked the manager. 

“ I said perfect, not popular,” said Addison. 

Miss Sapio, who had been unusually silent all the 


HEWETT ADDISON 269 

evening, here broke in, looking thoughtfully at her 
host. 

“ I want to get at this point of view you’re talking 
about, Hughie,” she said. “ Do you mean that ex- 
perience is everything and intuition of little good? ” 

“For an actress? ’’ he asked. 

“ For a human being, never mind the actress,” she 
said quickly. 

“ Yes,” said Addison. “ But I mean something be- 
yond material, practical experience. That teaches, 
but not the best lessons. We have to learn from the 
two old masters, Joy and Pain. We love the first. 
We loathe the second. A day comes when we are able 
to see that our debt of gratitude to them both is exactly 
equal.” 

Miss Sapio did not answer. Addison rose from the 
table with a word of apology. 

“ Forgive me for being so abominably commonplace,” 
he said, “ but Fve had a play out, you know, and my 
brain is taking a rest. Now, shall we sit round the 
fire? ” 

Miss Sapio was the last of his guests to depart. Addi- 
son, returning to the room after seeing the others out, 
found her leaning an elbow on the mantelpiece, with 
one foot on the fender, looking down into the fire. 

“Oh, how sleepy I am! ” he exclaimed, stopping at 
the table to pour a very small quantity of whisky into 
a glass, filled up with soda-water. “ Have a drink, 
Flo?” 

She looked up with a tiny start. 

“No, thanks, Hughie. Throw over my cloak, old 
man. I must do a toddle, as Quizzy says.” 

Addison emptied his glass, and gathered up the yards 
of rose-red silk, searching for the top of the cloak. 

“ What poor little dolls those women looked com- 
pared with you, my dear Florence,” he said absently, 
still handling the yards of silk. 


270 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ That’s only from your point of view,” said Miss 
Sapio, going to his assistance. “ Millie Fountain is 
almost young enough to be my daughter, and the other 
one is sweetly pretty.” 

He held up the cloak and she slipped it on to her 
shoulders. 

” You’re not sweetly pretty, you know,” he said. 
“ You’re very beautiful.” 

Miss Sapio laughed, and Addison dropped his hold 
of the cloak. She held out her hands with an effusion 
which would have been affected, or provocative, in any 
other woman. In her it was absolutely sincere and 
unpremeditated. 

” Good-night, Hughie! I can’t speak of your success 
for it would make me cry again, but you know what I 
think about it.” 

” I know,” said Addison. 

He stood immovable for several seconds, looking at 
her thoughtfully, critically, keenly. 

” Are you angry with me about something, Hughie? ” 
she asked, as simply as a girl. 

Addison shook his head slowly. 

” On the contrary, I am absolutely satisfied with you, 
Flo.” 

“Well, that’s something! ” she said, and laughed a 
little awkwardly. 

“ Absolutely,” he repeated. 

She fastened the golden clasp of the cloak and stooped 
to swirl her long train over one arm, then she looked 
up and saw he was still in the same attitude; his 
hands on his hips, his mouth a little compressed, his 
brows drawn together. She was about to speak, but he 
held up his finger for silence, and spoke himself, in a 
steady, deliberate voice. 

“ Flo, will you marry me? ” 

“Ah!” 

It was a little sharp exclamation that broke from her 


HEWETT ADDISON 


271 


lips, and all the colour faded out of her face. She 
looked, for a second, as if she were going to faint. Addi- 
son took a step nearer. 

My dear Flo! ” 

Miss Sapio laid her hand on the mantelpiece. She 
was trembling from head to foot. 

“ It can’t be! ” she said in a low, uncertain voice. 
** It can’t be. It’s impossible.” 

” Why is it impossible? ” 

” So many, many reasons.” 

Hewett Addison pushed a couple of chairs close to the 
hearth, stirred the fire, and lighted a cigarette. 

” Sit down beside me,” he said. “You must tell me 
the reasons.” 

She dropped into one of the chairs, unfastened the 
clasp of the cloak again, as if it were choking her, and 
leaned back with closed eyes. Addison poured out a 
glass of water and put it into her hand without a word. 
She raised it to her lips for a second, and then he dipped 
his fingers and drew them across her brow. She smiled 
faintly at that, and dabbed her forehead with her hand- 
kerchief. 

A rose she had worn in her dress had been tom by 
the fastening of the cloak, and its red petals now dropped 
on to her white dress. Addison picked up several of 
them, clinging together, and threw them into the fire. 

His ruling passion made him remember every trifling 
incident of this eventful night. Years afterwards, 
in one of his serious plays, a man dipped two fingers into 
a glass of water and saved a woman from fainting with 
one light touch, afterwards picking up some rose petals 
and carefully burning them, but the critics told him 
that both these things were unnatural and inartistic. 

Miss Sapio recovered and pulled herself up in the chair. 
Hewett smiled encouragement. 

“ Well? ” he said, taking up the conversation where 
they had left off. 


272 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


She rested her chin on her hand, looking at him. 

“ Well? ” he repeated after a pause. 

“Oh, Hughie, you have forgotten my agel You 
know nothing of my past life — ” 

“ One thing at a time,” he interrupted quickly. “ 1 
think I can guess your age. I am not a boy, you know, 
but in my thirty-ninth year.” 

“ But I am — over thirty-nine.” 

Addison nodded calmly. 

“ Very well! Let it go at that.” 

“ I have lived a very hard, very strange life,” she went 
on, “ but I never wanted to change the past till to-night. 
You spoke the truth about joy and pain a while ago. 
I have known both. I have known the heights and the 
depths of life. Do you realise what I mean? Do you 
think you know me? ” 

“lam sure of it,” said Addison, in the same unmoved 
voice. 

There was another long pause. 

“It is only right to tell you I have been married 
before,” she said in a very low voice. “ It was many 
years ago. Very few people remember it, but at the 
time — the other man being so well known, although 
it was only a bubble reputation — ^no one in the world 
knows all the story, but if you like — ” 

Addison’s raised hand stopped her. 

“ Are you legally free to marry again? ” he said. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Is your husband alive? ” 

“ He died, I was told, about four years ago.” 

“ There is no one else to stand between us? ” 

“Oh, Hughie — no! No!” 

Addison, who had not looked at her as he asked these 
questions, suddenly turned in his chair and laid his 
hands on her shoulders. 

“ Will you have me, Flo? I’m an odd, eccentric 
little beggar— you know that — full of all sorts of mad 


HEWETT ADDISON 


273 

ideas and whimsical nonsense. I should be wretched 
with an ordinary wife.’* 

“ What do you mean by an ordinary wife? ” she 
asked. 

“ Oh, you know, the usual thing. A wife who would 
want an ‘ At Home ' day, and stiff dinner-parties, and 
have stacks of relatives. I don’t like conventional 
women, and I don’t like girls, except to look at.” 

“ I thought, once, you had fallen in love with Phosie, 
before she married Walter Race,” said Miss Sapio. 

” No, not for a minute,” he replied. “ I called her 
a wave of delight from God, and so she is, but I have 
always loved you.” 

In spite of everything, Hughie? ” 

Because of everything ! If I would have you changed 
I should not be the man I am, for I know that tolerance 
and mercy, such as yours, are cheaply bought at any 
price. Y our life has made you what you are — kind, great- 
hearted, pitiful. I said just now I had always loved 
you, Flo, but that isn’t true. My love is the flower of 
deep-rooted admiration and honour.” 

He bent towards her, his hands clasped on the arm 
of his chair. She suddenly dropped her head and 
kissed them tenderly. They were wet with her tears. 

Oh, you mustn’t do that!” he exclaimed, with a 
change at last in his quiet voice. “ I couldn’t bear 
it from any woman. You mustn’t kiss my hands. 
Dearest Flo, you humble me.” 

” I love you with all my heart,” she said. 

It was several minutes before Hewett recovered his 
self-possession. Miss Sapio had never seen him so 
moved, and she understood, watching his emotion, 
something of the loneliness of his highly-strung but re- 
strained nature. 

He had told her, often and often, of the strange, 
fanciful creations of his brain, and in this rare moment 
of revelation she was thrilled by the sense of his de- 
18 


274 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

pendence on her S5nnpathy. The strength of his char- 
acter had raised her to new heights; his weakness filled 
her with a poignant feeling of pride, and pain, and 
gratitude. 

From that hour her life, after all its storm and tragedy, 
was dedicated to him — the shelter of his home, the pro- 
tection of his solitude, the perfection of his work. 

“ We will be married soon,” said Hewett, when they 
parted that night. 

“ Just as you please,” answered Miss Sapio. 

They had both slipped back into the commonplace. 
Hewett stood on the kerb, bare-headed, having put her 
into a taxi. 

” I want a holiday now the play is produced,” he 
went on. “ Shall we say next week, Flo? ” 

“To be married? Oh, my dear boy! ” 

“ Why not? ” said Addison. 

“Yes, why not? ” echoed Miss Sapio, with a laugh. 
“ When shall I see you again? ” 

“ To-morrow. We’ll settle it then. Good-night, 
Flo! ” 

“Good-night, dear Hughie!” 


CHAPTER XXIX 


ONCE AGAIN IN THE STROLL 

W HEN Euphrosyne drove away from Little Gus, 
in pursuit of Frank Race, it was some time 
before she was sufficiently calm to realise her position. 

The streets were flooded with the gay streams pour- 
ing from theatre and music-hall. She saw by a clock 
in the Haymarket that it was half-past eleven. 

The streams widened at Piccadilly Circus into a rush- 
ing river of noise, colour and confusion. Now and 
again, in the eddies and rapids, a figure would swim out 
of the troubled waters under the lee of Phosie’s craft — 
for hansoms are the old gondolas of old London — to 
hold her attention for a fleeting minute. 

Once it was a vision of a man and girl in an electric 
brougham, holding hands and looking into each other’s 
eyes, as much alone in their happy world as if they had 
been drifting down a real stream in their own canoe. 
Once it was the expression of a woman, flashing an evil 
smile to answering eyes from lips of vivid red; once it 
was the face of a boy shouting an evening paper, insolent, 
cunning, old in knowledge of the streets ; once it was the 
wondering, innocent stare of a little child, clutched in 
the arms of a nervous mother scuttling across the 
road. 

Her husband was always in Phosie’s mind, for she 
knew how much he loved his brother. It was for his, 
Walter’s, sake she had determined to throw herself 
between these men. Her fear and abhorrence of Jules 
Revell had never been as great as it was at that minute. 
275 


276 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

As she drew nearer and nearer to The Stroll, passing 
one familiar landmark after another, this inward feeling 
increased, but outwardly she was calm and alert, and 
even in her dread it was characteristic of Phosie that 
she was not wholly oblivious of a humorous side to the 
situation — the boastful Jules running away, Frank 
chasing Jules, Phosie chasing Frank, and, in all pro- 
bability, Walter chasing Phosie! 

She leaned eagerly forward in the cab as they turned 
out of Hammersmith Broadway into the quiet, shady 
Stroll. 

In Mr Revell’s days there had been a few ineffectual 
gas lamps placed at far intervals at the edge of the 
pavement, but these had long been superseded by big 
arc lights down the middle of the road. 

There was a bright moon, and the shadows of the still 
leafy plane trees flickered on the ground. 

The driver slackened speed, and Phosie thrust open 
the little trap-door over her head, telling him where to 
stop. 

She sprang out almost before the wheels were still, 
paid the fare, and ran up the well-remembered steps to 
the front door. 

Then she paused irresolute. The upper windows of 
the house were dark, but there was a light in the hall. 
She could see this by peering through the thick pattern 
of glass in the panels of the door. 

The driver turned his cab slowly and rattled away. 
The sound of the horse’s hoofs were like muffled drum 
taps on the soft road. 

Phosie was full of doubt. Perhaps she had come on 
a fool’s errand. What if Jules had not returned? Even 
if she saw him, how could she explain her visit at such 
an hour to his house? Would Frank Race brook her 
interference? Would she have to tell the truth to Jules 
Revell’s wife? What was it right to do? What was it 
wise to do? 


ONCE AGAIN IN THE STROLL 277 

She knocked at the door decisively and waited. 

The street was as silent as on the night when she 
had slept under the lilac bush with Little Gus, years and 
years ago. 

Again she put her face close to the thick glass panel, 
peering through. 

Suddenly there was a sound from within — men’s 
voices, hard and hoarse — an indistinct crash — a faint 
scream. 

Phosie hammered on the door. A shadow flitted 
against the glass panel. 

The door opened and she was confronted by a woman 
with a quantity of flaxen, dishevelled hair, and a white, 
haggard face. She wore an old lavender silk tea-gown 
with long, worn ruffles at the elbow sleeves and the collar 
fastened with a big safety pin, while her feet were thrust 
into velvet slippers, trodden down at heel, bursting out 
at the sides. Round her waist was a draggled sash of 
discoloured ribbon. 

For a second she and Phosie stared at each other in 
silence. Then the recognition was mutual. 

“ Lily! ” cried the one, throwing her arms round her 
old friend’s neck. 

“It’s Phosie! Come in, Phosie! For God’s sake, 
come in! My husband — ! ’’ gasped the other. 

She dragged Phosie into the naiTow hall and shut the 
door. It was hot and ill-ventilated. There was a 
strong smell of tobacco and cooking as they went down- 
stairs, and a child was wailing fretfully somewhere in the 
distance. 

Mrs Revell, once the pretty, pink-and-white Lily 
Parlow, led the way to the breakfast-room, clutching 
Phosie’s fingers in her own hot, shaking hand. 

Here the gas was flaring, and Phosie, as she entered, 
was dazzled by the sudden brightness. 

A table, spread for supper, had evidently been pushed 
hastily against the wall, for there was a smashed glass 


278 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


on the floor and a bottle of wine had been knocked over, 
staining the cloth red. 

Frank Race, still in his overcoat, but with his white 
shirt front crumpled and his collar torn, was kneeling 
on the ground over Jules Revell, trying to stanch a flow 
of blood from his right temple. Revell’s eyes were 
closed, and his breath came through his lips in irregular, 
loud puffs. The blood was in a little pool upon the floor, 
and trickled from his hair, which Race had pushed back 
from his forehead. 

Mrs Revell clung to Phosie with both hands, panting 
and quivering. 

“ He’s killed him — that man’s killed my husband — 
they came in together and quarrelled — I heard them — 
and they had a fight — ^he’s killed Jules — ” She left off 
speaking and began to sob, and then scream, pointing at 
Frank Race and clutching at her own breast with a^m^ess, 
fierce passion, horrible to see. 

Phosie gripped her hands and held them still. There 
was a second’s struggle between them, and then the 
poor, frightened creature was mastered. Her voice 
sank into a moan. She stared at Phosie helplessly, 
choking back her tears. Phosie released her hands 
and laid her own fingers on the other woman’s lips, 
caressingly but firmly, soothing her into silence. 

“You must go for a doctor at once, ’ ’ she said . “Do you 
understand me ? Don’t waste an instant ! Y ou will know 
where to go. Leaye^your husband to us. He has only 
fainted. Don’t look at him again — do as I tell you. Go ! ’’ 

Lily Revell obeyed. They heard her stumbling up 
the stairs, opening the front door, closing it behind her, 
running down the street. 

Phosie caught up a napkin from the table and knelt 
down. She and Frank Race looked at each other over 
the body of Jules Revell. 

“ I struck him and he fell against the iron fender,” 
said Frank. 


ONCE AGAIN IN THE STROLL 279 

Phosie laid Jules’s head flat upon the ground. She 
too tried to stanch the wound. 

“You must go away, Frank, before his wife returns 
with the doctor,” she said. 

“ No! ” exclaimed Frank. 

“You must! ” she answered, and her voice was calm 
and firm. “You must think of your own safety — if he 
is badly hurt — what can you do here? I implore you, 
Frank ! Hide yourself. Write me to-morrow and I will 
let you know what has happened. Quick ! For my sake 
— for Walter’s sake! ” 

As she spoke she wiped her fingers — it sickened the 
man who watched her to see the streaks of red on her 
white arms — took out her purse, opened it, and pressed 
the money it contained into his unwilling hands. 

“Phosie! I can’t!” he exclaimed. “I’m not a 
coward. I’ll face it out.” 

“ I implore you, Frank! ” she said again, in the most 
earnest tones of her appealing voice. “ It must be 
kept a secret — this horrible thing — not only for our 
sake but for the sake of his wife. Do you want to 
break her heart? Do you want to disgrace Walter? ” 

“ I can’t leave you alone,” he said. 

“ What can you do here? ” she said for the second 
time. “You have struck down your enemy. There 
was murder in your heart. God forgive you both. Oh, 
my brother! My brother! ” 

He was conquered by her intensity. Not for the 
first time in her life, in that same room, her moral 
strength was triumphant, and when she raised her head 
for a word of farewell Frank Race was gone. 

She bent over the injured man, the man who had tried 
to wrong her so cruelly, with hand and eye and every 
sense intent upon her work. Alone with Jules Revell, 
doing everything that was possible in her ignorance, 
he was no longer repugnant to her. She forgave him 
in her pity, grieved for his wasted youth, and thought 


28 o a spirit of mirth 

of him once more with the kindness of their first friend- 
ship. 

She realised that her hate had recoiled upon herself, 
darkening the brightness of her happy nature. 

" I will hate no more,” she said. 

She saw that Jules was greatly changed. He had been 
no match for Frank Race. His youth was passing, 
and with it the freshness of colour and agility of move- 
ment which had been his only attraction. The thick 
moustache concealed the ugly mouth, but as he lay upon 
the floor, in all the revelation of unconsciousness, the 
deterioration of his face and figure was startlingly ap- 
parent, but Phosie did not think of it. 

Her attention was fixed upon the street, straining 
her ears for the return of Lily Revell with a doctor. 
She was vaguely distressed the while by the distant 
crying of the child, wondering whether it was Lily’s 
child, and longing to comfort it. 

The familiarity of the room grew upon her. She 
thought of Mr Revell, of Gus, of herself. The ghosts of 
old days crept out of the shadows, brushed against her 
in the silence, took form and faded in her quickened brain. 

Phosie sprang up at the sound of hurried feet on the 
steps outside the house, with an exclamation of in- 
tense relief. They seemed to have been alone, she and 
the inert figure on the floor, for an hour. In reality it 
was less than ten minutes. 

Lily Revell ran downstairs, talking incoherently, 
closely followed by a neighbouring doctor. He was a 
tall, broad-shouldered man, capable, prompt, silent. 
The impression he gave as he stooped over Jules was of 
stern strength and professional reticence. 

After one swift glance at the two women it was Phosie, 
not the wife, whom he chose to help him. Lily sat 
down on the edge of a chair, rubbing her hands aimlessly 
over one another, ill at the sight of blood, shaking and 
crying. 


ONCE AGAIN IN THE STROLL 281 


” This was caused by a fall, I understand? He was 
apparently seized with sudden faintness,” the doctor said 
to Phosie. 

She knew that Jules’s wife must have told this story. 
Lily Revell, in spite of her agitation, had spoken no 
word of the fight. She was governed by knowledge of 
the man whom she had married. Without knowing 
the cause of his quarrel with Frank Race she was ready 
to believe the worst of her husband. He deserved his 
punishment, but for her own sake, for the sake of her 
child, she must shield him from disgrace. 

When Jules Revell returned to consciousness his eyes 
opened on Euphrosyne’s face. He gave a groan of pain, 
and showed no surprise at her presence or remembrance 
of what had passed. 

Then he tried to smile at her. She was looking at him 
so kindly. A vague feeling of remorse troubled his 
dazed mind. Was it years ago — or was it yesterday 
— that Phosie had gone out of his life? It was a pity, 
and he was to blame — yes, he felt sure he was to blame — 

” If I’ve been brutal to you, forgive me, Phosie,” he 
said weakly. 

” I forgive you, Jules,” she answered. 

He touched her hand. His touch had always been 
warm, as eloquent without words as the glance of his 
full brown eyes, but now it was cold and feeble. For the 
first time in her life she felt no inward shrinking from him. 
His heavy eyelids drooped. He was satisfied. 

Phosie looked earnestly at the doctor. 

” Will he die? ” she said. 

The doctor allowed a smile to break through his pro- 
fessional manner. 

” There is not the slightest danger of that,” he replied. 

Half an hour later, when she had helped Lily to make 
up a bed for her husband in the room where he had 
fallen, and the doctor had put him to rest, Phosie opened 
the door to Walter Race. 


282 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


She had anxiously awaited his coming and greeted 
him with the long-repressed excitement of such an event- 
ful night. 

“Dearest! she exclaimed, and then again, “Dearest! 

“ What on earth is the meaning of this? ” he said, as 
she drew him into the hall. “ I didn’t get home till 
nearly twelve o’clock, and there was Gus waiting for 
me with this amazing story about you and Frank. 
Have you gone out of your senses? What are you 
doing here? ” 

Phosie’s hand dropped from his arm. He was angry, 
nervous, unlike himself, and went on speaking hurriedly, 
emphasising his words with peculiar jerky movements 
of both hands. 

“ I repeat, what are you doing here? Haven’t I 
troubles enough without this? You don’t know what’s 
happened! I’ve got something to tell you. It’s bad 
news, Phosie! It’s awfully bad news. You ought to 
have been at home. I didn’t expect this ! I know who 
lives here — Jules Revell. He was in love with you. 
You told me so yourself. What have you got to do with 
him? Where is Frank? ” 

He stopped for a second, biting his under lip. She 
tried to speak, but he went on again, in the same voice, 
with the same gestures: 

“ I tell you I’ve got bad news. You don’t care! I 
wanted you when I got home. You don’t know how I 
wanted you! You were not there. What do you mean 
by it ? What’s this man got to do with us ? If I thought 
you had ever cared for him — ” 

“Stop! You must not speak to me like this! ” she 
interrupted with sudden passion. “You forget yourself. 
I refuse to listen.’’ 

He stared at her wretchedly. Her flash of anger was 
gone. She went very close to him and spoke softly, 
her arm stealing roimd his neck. 

“ I came here for the sake of your brother. Why are 


ONCE AGAIN IN THE STROLL 283 

you angry with me, Walter? You are so fond of Frank 
and I found he was in danger. I thought I could help 
him. I will tell you all about it — everything — when 
we get home. Wait for me, dear.” 

She ran upstairs to Lily, who was rocking her little 
boy in her arms, wrapped in an old flannel dressing- 
gown. He was a dark-haired, fretful little creature, 
with great liquid eyes like his father. Phosie re-made 
his untidy bed, opened the window, and finally crooned 
him to sleep, walking up and down the room. 

Then she persuaded Lily to eat and drink, for she was 
exhausted, before they arranged the room where Jules 
lay. 

Lily Revell, who had lost ail her girlish affectation, 
did not thank her in many words, but she hung round 
her neck at parting. 

“ I don’t know what made you come to-night, Phosie,” 
she said. “ But it doesn’t matter, for I don’t want to 
know. You understand my husband. You’ve lived 
in the house with him. There’s only one way to be 
happy with Jules — not to care — and I’m learning my 
lesson. Good-night, Phosie. Good-bye. I should have 
died without you.” 

Euphros5me found her husband pacing backwards 
and forwards in the dark hall. 

“ Shall we go home? ” he asked when she appeared. 
” Are you ready to hear the bad news? Can you bear 
any more to-night, Phosie?” 

I am ready, love,” she answered. 


CHAPTER XXX 


HOW PHOSIE HEARD THE NEWS 

M r & MRS RACE had returned to their house 
in Temple Street. 

On entering they had gone into the gloomy little study. 
Walter had switched on the electric light which hung over 
the writing-table. The corners of the room were in 
shadow. Although the curtains were closely drawn 
it was impossible to shut out the cold, lonely hour of the 
night. 

Phosie, still wrapped in her cloak, was sitting in a big 
chair, stooping forward, silently watching her husband. 

Walter Race walked backwards and forwards from 
the fireplace to the door, his head hanging down, his 
hands clenched, his handsome face like a set mask of 
bitterness and rage. 

Phosie was quelled, for the moment frightened, by a 
sense of physical force. His low, hoarse voice; the swing 
of Ais big shoulders as he turned; the dark flush which 
had succeeded his paleness ; his violence of language — 
everything about him made her conscious of her own 
weakness. For the first few minutes she was helpless, 
trembling, every nerve jarred; had she allowed herself 
to speak it would have been a prayer for a minute’s 
peace — the wailing appeal of the woman who is swept 
into the buffeting currents of a man’s stronger nature 
and feels herself at his mercy. 

If Walter had had any conception of his wife’s emotions 
he would have been amazed. He only saw that she was 
very pale, and her beautiful eyes, fixed on his face, were 
wide and glassy. 


284 


THE NEWS 


285 

It was not until his storm of anger was spent that 
she leaned back in her chair with a deep sigh and al- 
lowed her taut muscles to relax. She was afraid of him 
still, and suddenly thought of his brother kneeling beside 
Jules Re veil with blood on his hands. 

It is a shuddering minute when a sensitive being 
like Euphrosyne realises the terrible primeval passions 
in men. 

Walter sat down beside her, taking her hand. 

“Do you believe what has happened, Phosie?’* he 
said, gradually recovering his self-control. “ Do you 
understand? We are ruined! Ruined!** 

“ Yes, I understand,** she answered, faintly. 

“ I’ve been with Carl Stratton all the evening,** he 
went on. “ He’s in the same boat, thank God! What 
a fool I’ve been! What a damned fool! I’ve trusted 
him — relied on his judgment — one thing after another — ’’ 

“Walter! You’re hurting me,’* she interrupted, 
trying to draw her hand out of his grasp. 

He unlocked his fingers instantly, but they had left 
their mark on her wrist. 

“ Your money has gone too,*’ he continued, with a 
short, harsh laugh; “ I wonder if you take it in, Phosie. 
We shall have to sell up — all this house — it isn’t ours 
any longer. I must go to my brothers, I suppose. 
Good Lord! How John will bully and Edmund preach. 
I wonder whether Frank will lend a hand? I hate 
asking Leo. Every penny belongs to his wife.*’ 

Phosie rubbed her wrist and did not answer. He got 
up and paced the floor again for several minutes. 

“ Well, I’ve got my thrashing in life, and I deserve it ! ** 
he said. 

She was still silent, but her expression changed. 
She looked at him tenderly, sorrowfully, no longer 
afraid. 

“ If I didn’t feel so wretchedly ill — ’* he began, and 
sat down once more at her side. 


286 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


What is the matter with you, Walter? ” she asked. 

I don’t know,” he answered. ” First I burn, and 
then I freeze. Every bone in my body aches.” 

Phosie laid her hand on his forehead, but he jerked it 
away. 

“Why did you let me have your money, Phosie?” 
he said. “ I promised to double it, didn’t I? I wish 
you’d taken Faraday’s advice. He was a better judge 
of your husband than you are, my dear.” 

“Walter! Walter!” 

She pulled herself to her feet, stooped to kiss him, 
and went out of the room. 

He heard her running lightly downstairs to the base- 
ment. In a few minutes she returned, carrying some 
paper and a bundle of firewood in her arms. 

“ What are you going to do? ” he asked. 

“ Light a fire in our room,” said Phosie. “ It is so 
cold and cheerless for you. My poor darling! ” 

He followed her slowly with dragging steps. 

She was holding the door open when he reached the 
second floor, with one finger on her lips. 

“ We mustn’t wake Jane,” she whispered. 

She had already turned on the electric light and 
wheeled a chair, piled with cushions, up to the hearth. 

Walter was strangely subdued. He sat down in 
silence. 

Phosie threw off her cloak, knelt on the hearthrug and 
quickly built up the fire which had burned out in their 
absence. 

She had a skilful, light hand. The paper flared and 
faded; the wood crackled; a little spurt of flame leapt 
forth and frolicked in the air for a second, vanished, 
and came again, flickering but strong. A spiral of grey 
smoke puffed out and vainly tried to smother the dancing 
jets. A dull red glow slowly crept over the black hollow 
beneath the flare. 

The fire was alight, reflex of the endless fires kindled 


THE NEWS 


287 

in the homes of men; spiritual symbol in its upward 
leap of living flame; eternal proof of the warmth of 
love. 

Phosie, still kneeling in front of him, put her hand on 
Walter’s knee with a gentle, fond smile. 

“ It will be all right, dear,” she said. “ You mustn’t 
despair — ^we have each other — lookl what a bright 
hearth ! ” 

” Phosie! ” 

Her husband, with a low, strange cry of weakness 
— gratitude — ^remorse — bent forward, took her hands 
and crushed them against his lips. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


LIGHT AND SHADOW ON THE WALL 

T here are times when the world of action, work, 
and pleasure seems to stand still. 

All a man’s interest and hope become centred in him- 
self, but even then it is a vague interest and a faint hope. 
One is, at such a period, both a supreme egoist and fit- 
fully indifferent to his own fate. 

He wants to live, for life has never seemed so dear, 
but lying as he does in the shadow of death his spirit 
is as courageous as his body is weak. 

All his emotions are contradictory. New thoughts 
of transcendent loveliness pass through his mind, but 
the merest trifles agitate and trouble him. He is 
haunted by grotesque dreams. For an hour he is 
patiently brave, but the next he is wretchedly despond- 
ent. He realises his own danger, but not clearly. The 
days and weeks are merged together. Sometimes the 
sunshine gleams into his quiet room through drawn 
blinds, and sometimes there is the soft light of shaded 
lamps. This is the only difference he knows between 
day and night. 

Walter Race, towards the end of October, drifted 
into a languid world such as this. His strength was 
drained by rheumatic fever quickly following the 
nervous breakdown caused by his financial disaster. 

He hung between life and death, and his wife, the 
shadow of Euphrosyne, watched his struggle with a 
soul which never doubted the issue. She knew that 
he would live. In the darkest hour she was not afraid. 
288 


LIGHT AND SHADOW 289 

She felt as if his faint heart were fluttering in her own 
breast and the spirit within her — strong, undaunted — kept 
it beating. 

Walter, forgetful of everybody else, never lost con- 
sciousness of her presence. When the danger was over 
he thought, in his foolish weakness, that she had liter- 
ally kept her hand on his forehead, cool and soft, through 
all the uncounted hours of his delirium. 

He pondered over this, watching the light and shadow 
on the wall of the room. 

All time had resolved itself into these shifting lights 
and shadows on the wall. His eyes perpetually rested 
there. The plain green paper was singularly restful, 
and there was a small vase of flowers on a wooden 
bracket which Phosie tended every day. He was 
never tired of looking at the blossoms and leaves. 

Walter knew that he was not lying in his bedroom in 
Temple Street, for they had moved into furnished 
lodgings in Belton Terrace, the first floor of the house 
where Little Gus still lived, shortly before his illness. 

It seemed a long, long time ago. He had a hazy 
recollection of miserable days. There had been a violent 
quarrel with Carl Stratton, harassing interviews with 
men to whom he owed money, lengthy disputes with an 
officious stranger who was taking an inventory of the 
contents of the house — gradually all these things re- 
turned to his mind, but he was still too feeble to ask 
questions. 

Nothing surprised him. Nothing affected him. 

When Phosie was in the room he tried to talk to 
her, when she was absent he watched the lights and 
shadows on the wall — listening, yearning for her return. 

Jane was greatly puzzled at first by the change in 
her life. She no longer had a nurse. Her home had 
dwindled down into three rooms. It was an amazing 
thing to see her mother cook the dinner on a gas-stove 
in a little, chilly scullery at the end of a passage. 

19 


290 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


She soon discovered that Belton Terrace was a very 
interesting place. 

There had been no hawkers in Temple Street, and 
musicians of all kinds had been strictly prohibited. It 
was also an advantage to live in the same house as 
Little Gus, who was ready to play “ Beggar my neigh- 
bour ” or “Old Maid” — Jane was preternaturally 
sharp at learning cards — immediately after breakfast 
or till the very last minute before bedtime. 

She frequently crept into her father’s room and stood 
beside him, her little, thoughtful face so wonderfully 
like the face on the pillow. 

“ Are you gettin’ better, daddy? ” was her usual 
question. 

“Yes, darling, I am getting better,” he would answer, 
perhaps putting out a hand to touch a wave of dark 
hair as she leaned forward, peering curiously into his 
hollow eyes. 

Sometimes she would carry the cat of the house into 
the room, or one of her toys, to entertain him, but she 
generally preferred the society of her mother. 

“ Daddy looks so thin, an’ so long, an’ so miser’ble in 
bed,” she explained to Phosie. 

Little Gus was another of Walter’s regular visitors, 
shuffling in and out of the room in an old pair of slippers, 
meaning well, but generally the bearer of depressing 
scraps of information out of the newspapers regarding 
fires, railway accidents, or deaths from starvation. The 
patient listened in silence to Gus’s disjointed sentences, 
grateful for his kind intention, but more grateful still 
when the door closed behind him. 

Walter was really glad to see Hewett Addison, whose 
shadow fell one day across the green wall. Hewett 
was the bearer of a basket of flowers and a huge bunch 
of hothouse grapes, with a letter, from Miss Sapio. 

“ Flo is in Paris,” he explained. “ I believe she is 
buying clothes for her wedding.” 


LIGHT AND SHADOW 291 

Is Miss Sapio going to be married? ” asked Walter, 
with a glance of surprise at Phosie. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Hewett Addison in his quiet way. 
” I believe she will be very happy, though ‘ marriages 
is always risky,' as the girl observed who united herself 
to a soldier after walking out with him once.” 

” I am so glad! I congratulate you with all my 
heart! ” said Phosie, putting out her hand to Hewett. 

“ What! Are you the fortunate man? ” asked Walter 
in his feeble voice, 

” Yes, so I am told,” said Hewett. ” You must come 
to our wedding, my dear Race. You must get well on 
purpose. We intended to be married three weeks ago, but 
Miss Sapio got a splendid offer for a short tour. If you 
knew as much about the theatrical profession as I do 
you would not be at all surprised at her postponing 
it on that account. Every actress seems to be able to 
get a husband, but it’s a much more difficult business to 
get an engagement.” 

“Not if an actress has a kind and good friend who 
happens to be a great man,” said Phosie, looking at 
Addison with an expression of gratitude that her husband 
did not then imderstand. 

“ Perhaps you’re right, but I don’t agree with you,” 
answered Hewett, ignoring her meaning. 

To be thanked for anything he had done was one of 
the few things in the world which made him irritable. 

When his brother John appeared upon the scene, the 
day following Addison’s visit, Walter Race was both 
agitated and pleased. 

He knew that John and Edmund were very angry, 
righteously angry. The members of the family had 
escaped many dangers, but they had never before ap- 
proached the perils of bankruptcy. Even their black 
sheep, Frank, was not guilty of a crime like that. The 
fox-hunting brother, Leo, shared their indignation, but 
he was too good-natured to vent it on Walter’s wife. 


292 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


John and Edmund, on the contrary, were inclined 
to blame Phosie for every imprudent action of their 
brother’s life, not only after, but before, he married 
her. 

It was in this spirit that Mr John Race paid his first 
visit to Belton Terrace, accompanied by Edmund. 
They were totally unprepared for the reception Phosie 
gave them. It was so affectionate, so frank, but so 
independent that the two brothers found themselves 
in the position of valued frietids of whom nothing was 
asked but the sympathy they had — not — come to offer. 

The small rooms, so sparely but prettily furnished; 
the appearance of the child; the care expended on the 
simple meal to which they were invited; the evidence 
of careful, orderly nursing of the invalid; everything 
they saw added to their surprise, pleasure and discom- 
fiture. 

John, being thick-skinned, accepted the situation 
much more easily than Edmund. The eight years of 
the family’s studied neglect of Walter’s wife was not a 
pleasant reflection, but under all his pomposity and 
pride there was the English passion for justice in Mr 
John Race, and he honestly confessed to himself he had 
not been just to Euphros5me. 

He told her so bluntly in a strident voice, standing 
with his back to the fire in the little sitting-room, while 
Edmund, with the same feeling accentuated, could find 
no words to express it. 

Phosie, who would have met the coolest rebuff with 
the courage of a high spirit, was deeply touched by his 
kindness. 

“ It isn’t your money that I wanted,” she said — “ I 
have told you my plans — but you don’t know how I’ve 
longed to make friends.” 

“Perfectly natural!” exclaimed John Race. “Not 
another word, my dear girl, not another word. I cannot 
overlook Walter’s injudicious conduct — ” 


LIGHT AND SHADOW 


293 


“ In marrying me? ” interrupted Phosie, smiling. 

“ Not at aU! ” said John, laughing as if her question 
were a capital joke. “ I mean his injudicious conduct 
in allowing this Hatton — Batton — Stratton man to 
manage his affairs. But Walter was always unbusiness- 
like and stubborn. I only know one man more unbusi- 
nesslike and stubborn than my brother Walter, and that’s 
my brother Leo.” 

“ Leo has written us a very kind letter,” said Phosie. 
” Of course he is angry with Walter too, but he offers to 
help him aU the same.” 

To her surprise both Mr John Race and the Reverend 
Edmund took this ill. 

” It is rather late in the day for Leo to set us an ex- 
ample of fraternal affection,” said the clergyman, 
drily. 

“Confound his impertinence!” exclaimed the J.P. 
“ I am the head of the family and quite capable of taking 
care of the family’s interest and honour without Leo’s 
interference.” 

“ We must look into Walter’s affairs,” continued 
Edmund. 

“ Perhaps it will be possible to save something from 
the wreck,” said John. 

“ What induced Frank to run off to Canada when his 
brother was in trouble? ” said Edmund. 

“ I flatter myself we can do very well without Frank,” 
observed the irascible John. 

Phosie, glancing from one to the other, here inter- 
posed with great earnestness. 

“ I appreciate your goodness,” she said. “ But my 
friend, Mr Boyton, has kindly offered to advise and 
help us. He is a very clever lawyer, and I trust him 
implicitly.” 

“ But surely your husband’s relatives are the proper 
people to help and advise? ” said the Reverend Edmund. 

“ Then give me your affection,” said Phosie, eagerly. 


294 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


“ Come to see Walter and don’t be hard on him. You 
are really so fond of one another, you brothers! If 
any trouble comes you are equally loyal and true. I 
believe you would die for each other. Why can’t you 
live together in peace? ” 

She stopped abruptly, blushing at her own boldness, 
but Edmund only smiled indulgently at the little out- 
burst, and John broke into a hearty laugh. 

“ I like you, Phosie! ” he cried. “ You’ve got the 
courage of your convictions. Of course we’re loyal and 
true to each other, and of course we fight among our- 
selves. Both qualities make for strength.” 

“You must see more of Alicia,” said Edmund. “ She 
entertains the same views as yourself about family peace. 
She and her own people have quarrelled over it bitterly 
many and many a time.” 

“ I should like you to know my wife and the girls,” 
added Mr John Race, graciously, “ and I don’t think 
you have seen much of Mrs Leo, have you? ” 

“ I have only met her once,” said Phosie. 

“ Oh, we must put an end to all these little differences,” 
said John, in a tone which implied that Phosie was as 
much to blame as anybody else. “ You are all of you 
sisters, you know — sisters-in-law — I intend to bring you 
together. Leave it to me, my dear girl. You can safely 
leave everything to me.” 

Mr John Race was as good as his word. 

Walter, sitting in his easy chair, was surprised to 
receive visits, not only from Mrs Edmund, who had 
always made a point of treating Phosie with patronising 
kindness, but from Mrs John and Mrs Leo. It was an 
even greater surprise to observe their treatment of his 
wife. At first it was merely courteous, then it grew 
cordial, and then it became affectionate. 

In the earlier years of their marriage he would have 
laughed at Phosie’s conquest, but there was a new 
gravity in Walter Race. 


LIGHT AND SHADOW 29S 

He had suffered, and an undeveloped strength of char- 
acter was bom of his suffering. In the introspection 
afforded by his long convalescence he could see the 
growth, the stmggling towards acknowledgment, of a 
new reverence in his life. 

He had experienced this feeling before, but only in 
flashes of passing emotion. It was a reverence of which 
he never spoke, for the hour had not come, but day by 
day it shone in his heart with a more steady, unchanging 
light. 

Euphrosyne, at about this time, was frequently absent 
from his room. He made no complaint — ^how different 
from the Walter of other days ! — but it greatly troubled 
him. He missed her in the evenings most of all, but, 
strange as it may appear, the true reason for her absence 
never entered his mind. When he asked Gus where she 
had gone, the ready answer served its turn. 

“ She’s gone to see Mrs Edmund Race, because she 
thought the walk would do her good,” said Gus, as if 
he were repeating a lesson. 

Walter was satisfied, and when, night after night, she 
chose the same hour for the same walk, he grew accus- 
tomed to the idea. 

“ If she only knew how I live for her return,” he 
thought, but no hint of his loneliness passed his lips. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


LITTLE GUS ATTAINS HIS MANHOOD 

H EWETT ADDISON, in spite of his name and 
fame, could not open the door twice of golden 
opportunity. 

When Phosie asked him to help her to obtain an 
engagement, soon after her husband’s illness, he was more 
than willing to use his influence, but the success of her 
brief career on the music-hall stage was already for- 
gotten. 

The Paramount Theatre, where she had appeared as 
the Lost Fairy, was under new management. Hewett 
tried in vain to get her a trial turn at one of the smaller 
West End halls. He applied to his friend Tailing, 
who had composed the music for the “ Lost Fairy,” for 
his success as a song- writer was no longer hanging in the 
balance. 

Tailing was a man of importance in the peculiar 
Bohemian world of musical comedy. He had great 
experience, also, in the halls. Tailing remembered 
Phosie very well. He had been more than half in love 
with her in the old days — but he did not mention this 
fact to Addison — and he not only gave her a couple of 
songs of his own, but taught her how to sing them. 
Addison arranged a dance, and Miss Sapio insisted on 
providing a costume. 

When this point was reached it was old Quizzical 
Quilter, the last man in the world whom Tailing and 
Hewett would have invited to their councils, who 
actually obtained Phosie’s engagement. 

296 


GUS 


297 


The manager of the Gem, a small, prosperous music- 
hall in a busy suburb, happened to be the son of one of 
Quizzy’s oldest friends. Quizzy made it his business 
to spend an evening at the Gem and raved about little 
Miss Moore. The manager offered to see her turn, and 
Mr Quilter returned to the West End delighted with his 
success. 

Addison was inclined to scorn the Gem, but Tailing 
overruled his objections, and Phosie agreed with the 
composer. 

“ It would be foolish to refuse an engagement of any 
kind,” she urged. 

“ Starting at the Gem doesn’t mean that one is bound 
to stop there,” said Tailing. 

“Hear! hear! ” cried Miss Sapio. 

“ Of course I know that the great point is to get an 
appearance,” said Addison. 

“ There you are! ” exclaimed Quizzy; adding, some- 
what enigmatically, “ We all like a dinner of roast beef 
and apple dumplings, but there’s no harm in a little bit 
o’ fried fish to start.” 

Phosie’s trial turn was a success, not an overwhelming 
success, but good enough for the manager to give her 
a month’s engagement. He put her on in the early part 
of the programme, before his patrons were too noisy to 
listen to her songs. 

She was strangely out of place at the Gem. It was 
positively painful to Addison to see her there, for he did 
not understand that Phosie created her own atmo- 
sphere. Coarse tongues were silent at her approach. 
She had the knack of making people laugh at trifles, 
and was able to hold her own, for all her gentleness and 
gaiety, while her quick, unselfish courtesy made her 
popular with men and women alike. 

Phosie, guarding her secret from her husband, con- 
fided everything to Little Gus. It gave him pleasure 
to be consulted, and being told the amount of her salary, 


298 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

small as it was, he recovered his usual cheerfulness and 
left off brooding over possible starvation. 

He had implored Phosie, when she returned to Belton 
Terrace, to accept the whole of his weekly wages, and 
when she refused he lived in a state of dread, expecting 
Walter to be arrested for debt and dragged out of 
his bed by the police at any hour of the day or 
night. 

Gus was not an optimistic companion diuring the first 
weeks of trial, and even Jane remonstrated with him on 
his gloomy outlook. 

Your eyes always look as if you were goin’ to cry,’' 
she said. “ I think you must be nothin’ but a grown- 
up baby.” 

Remarks such as this depressed Gus, but little Jane, 
who really loved him, compensated for her severities by 
impetuous hugging. 

Gus often longed in his aimless way for an oppor- 
tunity to show his devotion to his only friends. 

He had always known that Walter Race held him 
in careless contempt. Even Phosie never suspected how 
his weak, over-sensitive nature had been wounded by 
her husband’s treatment. He had never meant to be 
cruel to Gus, any more than he would have been cruel 
to a harmless animal, but all Gus’s poor attempts at an 
equality of friendship had been simply ignored, for 
Walter was unconscious of their existence. His very 
kindness and indifferent hospitality, hardly noticing 
whether it was accepted, was a vague reproach, a subtle 
insult, to the manhood of Gus. 

He was hurt, humiliated, and the desire to assert 
himself — to be worthy of the respect of the man whom 
Phosie had married — had long been the strongest, hidden 
feeling of his life. 

The opportunity came, — the supreme chance, — but not 
as Little Gus had pictured it in his imagination. In 
this, as in everything else, he was unfortunate. 


GUS 


299 

The bright hour which proves its greatness is often 
the darkest hour for the heroic soul. 

The Gem music-hall was an old, badly- constructed, 
inconvenient building. The front of the house, the stage 
and principal dressing-rooms were arranged, according 
to modern regulations, in as safe and comfortable a 
manner as possible. There were plenty of exits, and the 
staircase was of stone. At the back of the stage was a 
swing-door leading to a narrow flight of stairs which 
communicated with two small rooms, all that remained 
of an old house formerly occupying the site of the modern 
music-hall. 

Phosie had been given one of these little rooms, mere 
cupboards in size, the other being used by three sisters, 
trapeze artistes. 

She was very glad to be alone, and until the night of 
Gus’s adventure had had no objection to her compara- 
tive isolation, for the girls in the room below did not 
arrive till late, being engaged at another hall in the 
early part of the evening. Phosie could hear, when 
she opened her door, the orchestra and audience in the 
distance. 

Little Gus, who had haunted the gallery of the Para- 
mount during the career of the ‘ Lost Fairy,” as persist- 
ently haunted the Gem, except on the days when he 
stopped at home to keep Walter company, but that 
was not often, for Walter really preferred to be alone. 

Gus was admitted behind the scenes, for there were 
no strict rules at the Gem. The place seemed to possess 
a peculiar fascination for him. Sometimes he stood 
in the wings staring at the performers, but more often 
he wandered aimlessly about the back of the stage, or 
sat on a roll of carpet, occasionally chatting with the 
stage hands or listening to the conversation of the 
artistes. 

He was interested in everything to do with a theatre, 
and even a commonplace hall like the Gem possessed 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


300 

a glamour for his inexperience. The work of the elec- 
trician filled him with admiration; he was always 
excited at a change of scenery, and he would stand in 
the most uncomfortable position, till his back ached, 
for the pleasure of getting a glimpse of the audience 
through holes in the canvas. 

One night, in the confusion of setting the stage more 
elaborately than usual for the benefit of a new turn, 
Gus found himself hemmed into a corner at the back, 
close to the swing-door leading to the extra dressing- 
rooms, where it was so dark that the carpenters had not 
seen him sitting on his usual roll of carpet. 

Gus smiled at the situation. He was apparently 
imprisoned, and, without attempting to slip through the 
pieces of scenery, he resigned himself to his fate, looking 
forward to the surprise of the men when he should be 
discovered. 

It was a gloomy seat and there was nothing to amuse 
him. He soon began to yawn. After a little while 
his head bobbed forward, jerked back, then gradually 
sank down on his chest, and he was fast asleep. 

Gus always slept heavily, and as it happened that the 
pieces of scenery surrounding him were not required, 
he was undisturbed for over an hour. Phosie’s turn was 
over. She thought he had gone home. No one had any 
idea of his hiding-place. 

Suddenly, into the depths of his dreamless sleep, a 
strange noise drummed into his ears, and at the same 
time he became dimly conscious of a tickling, unpleasant 
sensation in his throat. 

He stirred, coughed, and shook himself back to reason 
His eyelids seemed, for the minute, to cling together. 
He coughed again. There was the sound of hurrying 
feet, a sharp voice raised above the din, and the distant 
rattle of a march from the orchestra. 

For a second Little Gus stared into strange, smoky 
mist — puzzled, troubled, only half awake. Then the 


GUS 


301 

truth crept into his slow brain, but he could not realise 
what it meant. 

The back of the stage was on fire — that was it — he 
said the words to himself, listening to the hurr5dng feet 
and the sharp voice of command. 

The back of the stage was on fire! He thought 
he had only been asleep for a few minutes. Phosie 
was still in her room — and the back of the stage was 
on fire. He said it to himself over and over again. 

What could he do? Why had they not warned him? 
Did they know he was there? He must rush out and tell 
them. 

Fire! Phosie was still in her room. He must save 
her. 

This was a new thought. It drove all others out of his 
brain. 

He must save Phosie. 

It was an easy matter to slip between the wings of 
scenery to the swing-door. 

The curling grey mist of smoke made his throat and 
eyes smart, but the possibility of actual danger did 
not occur to him. It was unpleasant, even painful, 
but nothing more. In a second he hoped to reach 
Phosie’s room and they could run downstairs together. 

The men who were fighting the fire towards the front 
of the stage had not seen or heard him. Starting in 
the flies, smoke and flames were swiftly spreading over 
the upper part of the building. The audience was 
safe. The performers were crowded round the stage 
door. The street was thronged with people. The 
Gem was turned to a ruby, glowing in the night. 

Little Gus staggered up the wooden stairs to Phosie’s 
room. He shouted her name. His throat, his eyes, 
his nose were tingling and sore. He was dazed, be- 
wildered, and slipped on the top step, striking his head 
against the closed door. 

" Phosie! ” he gasped again, pulling himself up. 


302 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


He groped for the handle and threw open the door. It 
shut behind him. The room was empty. 

The electric light was hanging over the dressing-table. 
The smoke which twined its way through the frame 
of the door had not yet obscured its brilliance. Phosie’s 
dancing dress hung against the wall, wrapped in a white 
cloth; several pairs of little satin shoes stood in a line 
on the floor. 

All the trifles on the dressing-table were neatly ar- 
ranged — the hare’s foot, the big box of powder, the 
sticks of grease paint, the eau-de-Cologne, the hair 
brushes — and several snapshots of Jane were stuck in 
the side of the looking-glass. 

Little Gus, staring and coughing, saw only one object 
of interest in the room, and that was a glass of water 
containing a bunch of violets. 

Water! He sprang forward, threw out the flowers, 
and poured it down his throat. 

Then he turned to make his escape. It was too 
late. He opened the door on blinding smoke. The 
hot air rushed into his face. The wooden staircase was 
crackling and spluttering like a handful of dry twigs 
tossed on a smouldering fire. 

A shriek of terror broke from his lips. For a few seconds 
he was like a madman. He tore his hair and waved his arms 
over his head, his face convulsed with horrible grimaces. 

But this passed. The love of his life — the daily habit 
of his thoughts — did not fail him in the moment of his 
great need. 

He remembered Phosie. She was safe. 

With this knowledge the futility of what he had done 
rushed over his struggling soul. 

His whole life was futile. The years passed before 
him in a second of time. 

He was to die — alone! She would never know, her 
husband would never know, what he had tried to do. 
They would forget him. 


GUS 


303 


God help me! ” groaned Little Gus. 

In the prayer was the answer. 

A sense of triumph swept over him. What were success 
or failure in the light of his heroic deed? It is not the 
accomplishment, but the effort which counts. The 
ordeal passed is the test of character. He had never 
thought of this before, but he felt that it was true. 

So, in that vital minute which passed between his 
madness of fear and his leap for life. Little Gus attained 
his manhood and conquered despair. 

The table stood in front of the window. He dragged 
its heavy weight aside as easily as if it had been a 
toy, threw up the sash and leaned out, shouting for 
help. 

There was no answer. He heard a confused noise in 
the distance, but the back of the music-hall, where he 
stood, was shut in by high, windowless walls. 

Below him was the dark outline of a flat roof. It 
was impossible to measure the distance. He climbed 
on to the sill, for the heat and smoke of the room were 
blinding, looked over his shoulder for one shuddering 
breath, gathered himself together, shut his eyes, and 
jumped down. 

It was over. He felt a shock of pain, writhed for a 
second, throwing out one arm, and lost consciousness. 

At the same time Phosie, pacing up and down her 
room, waited anxiously for his return. Walter was 
asleep and knew nothing of Little Gus’s absence. 

The hours dragged heavily past, and she saw the dawn 
break. 

The manager of the music-hall sent her news in the 
early morning. They had found her old friend lying on 
the roof — bruised, shattered, with broken limbs, the 
wreck of a man — but still alive. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


AFTER MANY MONTHS 



UPHROSYNE turned the bulbs to the sun 


Jane, standing on tiptoe on the seat of a chair 
beside her, looked at the little green shoots with ab- 
sorbing interest. 

It was a morning in spring, when the fresh breezes 
of a promising year find their way into city streets, 
straight from the awakening woods and open meadows. 

There were spring flowers in the room, the first of the 
flaring daffodils, faint violets, and the last of the delicate 
snowdrops. 

Belton Terrace, one of the most depressed of streets 
during the winter, made an annual effort to recover its 
good appearance in the spring. Many of the houses 
were painted, and it was a general custom to hang new 
curtains at clean windows. 

Phosie had done more. Her winter’s work was seen 
in the bright chintz covers on the chairs, the pretty 
lamp-shades, and the freshly-papered walls. All her 
four rooms were characteristic: simple, spotless, gay 
in colour. 

Everything was changed from the day when Mr and 
Mrs Race returned to the Terrace from Temple Street. 
The landlady’s furniture had gradually given place to 
furniture of their own, piece by piece as they could afford 
it, only the piano and an old-fashioned bookcase, with 
glass doors, being gifts. 

The piano was a belated wedding present from her 


AFTER MANY MONTHS 


305 

uncle, Joseph Ridgeway, and the bookcase had been 
given to Phosie by Hewett Addison. 

Phosie had first met her uncle, by accident, at the 
office of Messrs Faraday & Boyton. Mr Faraday said 
it was providential. Mr Boyton said it was jolly good 
luck. 

Joseph Ridgeway, who had loved his sister, looked 
at her daughter with curious, critical eyes, and his re- 
cognition of the relationship took the peculiar form of a 
remark on her hands, for having devoted twenty- 
five years of his life to the business it might be said that 
Mr Ridgeway judged all things in the world by the glove 
calibre. 

“ So this is Euphrosyne? ” he said, lifted her hand, 
looked at it, palm and back, and released her with a 
little smile. 

Yes, I’ll have you for my niece,” he continued. 

You’ve got a hand worthy of the best Grenoble 
glove, size five - and - three - quarters, real Dauphine 
kid.” 

This was a great compliment, for he was naturally 
a silent, reserved man, and he seemed to be more inter- 
ested in Phosie’s recollections of his old friend, Henry 
Revell, than in anything she had to tell him about 
herself. 

Phosie was bitterly disappointed. Mr Boyton told 
her she simply did not understand Joe Ridgeway. She 
was inclined to reject this consolation, but when her 
uncle unexpectedly appeared at Belton Terrace the day 
after their meeting and stopped to three meals, she began 
to think Mr Boyton was right. 

Her uncle had never married, and he reminded her in 
many ways of Mr Revell. She found herself taking 
care of him, studying his little eccentricities, treating 
him in exactly the manner she had treated her dear 
guardian. He was dmost as unresponsive, but he con- 
tinued to visit Belton Terrace, first making her a present 
20 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


306 

of his latest novelty — seamless gloves in suede leather 
— and afterwards giving her a piano. 

Walter’s recovery was very gradual, but long before 
he was able to work he had made up his mind to “do 
something.” It was very vague and unsatisfactory. 
He had had no training for any of the lucrative pro- 
fessions. “ Walter must enter a lucrative profession,” 
was his brother John’s favourite phrase, and something 
like despair seized upon him during the wearisome days 
of his slow recovery. 

For a long time he had believed himself dependent 
on his brothers’ generosity, and when he discovered 
Phosie had returned to the stage and he was living on 
her little salary, Walter Race passed through the most 
bitter-sweet hour of his life. 

His desire to work, from that day, grew into a passion. 
It haunted him.. The wildest schemes, the most ambi- 
tious projects, passed through his mind. 

John Race’s words, “lucrative profession,” buzzed 
in his ears. He repeated them to his wife, to Gus, 
even to Joseph Ridgeway. Phosie only smiled, Gus 
promptly adopted them as his own, but Mr Ridgeway 
grew thoughtful. 

“ Drop the word profession,” he said. “ Why don’t 
you say business? ” 

“ That doesn’t solve the problem,” said Walter. 
“ What business in the world can I go in for? ” 

“Mine!” said Joseph Ridgeway. “Gloves.” 

“ Yours? ” exclaimed Walter, with sudden hope and 
excitement in his voiec. 

“ Why not? ” asked Mr Ridgeway. “ If you care to 
start at the bottom of the ladder you can. I’m willing 
to give you a chance. I want a secretary and useful man 
about me, and later on, if you like it, you can study 
the business properly in France. If you once begin 
you must learn it all, from the start to the finish, from 
‘ the skin in the white,’ as we say, to ‘ the banding and 


AFTER MANY MONTHS 307 

boxing/ What do you think, Walter? Are you 
willing to work — work hard for your bread — like any 
other honest man who has run through his wife’s money 
as well as his own? ” 

Phosie put out a hand to stop him. The words were 
cruel and made her wince, but her husband returned 
Mr Ridgeway’s searching glance with much of his old 
pride. 

“You shall see,’’ was all he answered. 

Phosie was thinking of that talk as she put up her 
spring curtains and turned the bulbs to the sun, for her 
uncle was invited to dinner — late dinner, accompany- 
ing her husband back from the office — it being the end 
of the second month of Walter’s engagement. 

Mr and Mrs Hewett Addison were also invited. Phosie 
had wondered what effect their marriage would have 
upon Miss Sapio and the popular pla57wright. 

They were utterly unchanged. Flo was still ex- 
uberant, and her husband was more inscrutable than 
ever. They lived in her small house in Regent’s Park, 
but Hewett still retained one of his old rooms in Plan- 
tagenet Court. The tenant who succeeded him happen- 
ing to be a friend, it was easily managed. He had 
done some of his best work in that room, and the view 
it afforded over river and roofs had always inspired him. 

There were only three things in the world which, 
the more he knew them the more he was captivated — 
London, his work, his wife. 

The hackneyed sa 5 dng, there is no accounting for 
tastes, explained to his friends Hewett Addison’s choice 
of Miss Sapio, a woman who was older than he was, 
talkative, effusive, no longer in the heyday of her beauty, 
the very antithesis from himself. Few people under- 
stood that she added colour to his life, refreshed him 
with her vitality, and inspired his best work; her warm, 
impulsive nature continually counteracting the innate 
melancholy of his. 


3o8 a spirit of MIRTH 

Phosie's little dinner-party was a great success. Jane, 
awakened by the sound of voices and laughter, sat up 
in her bed to join in the unusual festivities, and called 
aloud for jelly and fruit. 

Gus, always her willing slave, instantly carried his own 
plate into her room and shared his dessert. 

Gus was still on crutches, but his face, terribly injured 
in the fall on the roof, was slowly recovering line and 
colour. 

Few people credited the weak-eyed cripple with the 
record of even a minute’s heroism, for he would be in- 
significant and feeble-spirited to the end of the chapter, 
but the three whom he loved best in the world, his only 
friends, were proud of Little Gus. In their eyes he 
was the most loyal of friends, the most dear of 
brothers. 

He lived alone, held his old place in Mr Faraday’s 
office, and found a great solace for lonely hours in prac- 
tising the concertina. He was not very musical, but 
there was satisfaction in struggling with his instrument, 
admired and encouraged by Jane. 

The hour was late when the guests departed. 

Phosie and her husband, left alone, drew their chairs 
up to the hearth and sat down to talk for a few minutes 
by the light of the fire. 

“ So ends my second month,” said Walter Race, 
lounging in his favourite attitude, hands clasped behind 
his head, long legs outstretched. 

” Do you still like it, dear? ” asked Phosie. 

He laughed, and did not answer for a second. 

‘‘Yes, I like it; ” then he said slowly, ‘‘lam begin- 
ning to understand and appreciate the good qualities of 
my colleagues. I haven’t learned much, but I see that 
no work is mean or despicable that one does well, even 
if it’s only sitting on a wooden stool answering letters 
from wooden-headed correspondents. I’m beginning 
to take an interest in the art of glove-making — ‘ doling,’ 


AFTER MANY MONTHS 


309 


cutting, webbing, and all the rest of it. Aren’t you 
looking forward to our little French trip, Phosie, when 
I mean to train myself thoroughly in gloves, so that I 
shall be able to distinguish the various qualities and 
values of the articles we handle. I’m getting on! 
You’ll be proud of me yet.” 

He laughed again, with his eyes, which had grown 
so strangely kind and gentle, fixed on her face. 

” I have always been proud of you,” she said. 

“You were always a little flatterer! ” 

He lighted a cigarette and smoked a while in silence, 
still looking at his wife. 

“ How do you manage it, Phosie? ” he asked, suddenly. 

“ How do I manage it? ” she repeated, in a puzzled 
voice. 

“Yes, the elegance — the charm — dinner-parties — 
the gorgeous style of our establishment in general,” 
he replied, smiling. 

Phosie laughed. 

“How absurd you are! Can anybody be gorgeous 
in Belton Terrace? I suppose I’m a born home-maker,” 
she added thoughtfully, “ I like it. I am glad to leave 
the stage, although people were so kind to me, and Flo 
Addison says I have lost a career.” 

She stirred the fire into a blaze. Shadows danced on 
the walls, and the fitful red glow shone over her face and 
figure as she stooped forward, shading her eyes with one 
hand. 

“ Do you remember the night when you made a fire 
in our room, after I had told you about the smash? ” 
asked Walter, suddenly. 

“ Oh, yes. Why do you ask me? ” she said. 

He did not answer directly, but leaning forward, 
his hands clasped between his knees, he, too, looked into 
the fire. 

The handsome severity of his face had changed since 
his illness. The features themselves were more clearly 


310 


A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 


cut than ever; the dark hair was still untouched with 
grey, but he looked much older. His expression was 
more changeable — quicker, but calmer at the same 
time — and even his voice vibrated with a new tone. 

“ Do you realise what you have done, Phosie? ” he 
said at last, not answering her question but asking 
another. 

“No. What have I done? ** said Phosie, lightly. 

“ Everything in the world! ” he answered. “ It was 
your old friend, Mr Boyton, whose advice and help 
saved me from utter ruin. It was your rmcle who gave 
me work. It was you who kept a roof over our heads 
by your dancing. You have never reproached me by 
a word or look. Think of my people! They love and 
admire you. You have won them by your sweet sim- 
plicity. Think of Little Gus ! You have saved his soul. 
What would he have been without you? A mere drudge 
— an outcast. Think of your husband! What have 
you done for your husband — “ 

“Walter! Stop! I can’t bear yom praise. You 
mustn’t speak to me like this — ’’ she interrupted, for 
his voice was shaking and his eyes shone. 

“ I must! ’’ he went on quicldy. “ I have wanted to 
tell you, for a long time, what is in my heart.*’ 

“ Love, there is no need,’’ she murmured. 

“ Think of our marriage, Phosie,’’ he said, slowly 
now, choosing his words. “ I only thought of myself — 
aU myself! You amused me. You captivated me. I 
thought I was doing you a great honour. I was half 
ashamed to tell my people.’’ 

She tried to interrupt again, and he answered what 
she meant to say. 

“ I know I never put it into words, but it was the truth 
all the same. That was why I never took you to see 
John or Leo. I was actually grateful to Edmund and 
his wife for treating you with civility. I saw how every- 
body admired you — other women, Wainwright, a genius 


AFTER MANY MONTHS 31 1 

like Hewett Addison — and I told myself it was all your 
pretty tricks, it was only your pretty face. I had been 
caught myself — ^lost my head over you — ^and I was 
amused to see other victims.” 

” Don’t speak so bitterly,” she said. 

” I want you to see me, Phosie, as I see myself,” con- 
tinued her husband. “ You know how we lived in 
Plantagenet Court ? Idle, wasted days ! It was never 
your fault. You tried to awaken some manhood in 
me. I think I began to understand you when we went 
to Sterry, but only a little. I was wilfully blind. I 
thought of you lightly — the old nicknames expressed 
it — sprite, fairy, elf, little creature who had 
danced into my life. Even the child made no dif- 
ference.” 

Ah, Walter! ” she sighed, understanding, as he went 
on, the meaning of a strange sense of unreality which 
had clouded the first years of her marriage. 

” I made up my mind the child would be like you. 
Another pretty toy to take care of,” said Walter. ” But 
you know I was wrong. I saw myself in her eyes. She 
seemed to be all mine. I was stirred with the mystery 
of Love and Life. Oh, Euphrosyne! Strange, strange 
how the tie of marriage, the birth of my child, and the 
discipline of my secret heart should all have sprung from 
half a dozen notes of music.” 

” I don’t understand you, Walter.” 

” All from a girl’s laugh — yours! ” 

She knelt down upon the floor and put her arms round 
his neck, pressing her cheek to his with the old fond 
caress. 

” My heart! ” he whispered. ” On that starry night 
when we walked through the quiet streets together — 
you remember, my Phosie? — I felt as I do now, enrap- 
tured by your goodness, exalted by your love. It was a 
leaping flame, but I crushed it down. I darkened its 
pure light with passion — indifference — pride — ^self! self! 


312 A SPIRIT OF MIRTH 

self ! It burns again clearly in my soul, and I see you as 
you are.” 

Her only answer was to murmur his name, but he felt 
her happy tears on his face. 

“ I know myself at last,” he said, and then he re- 
peated; “I see you as you are — ^spirit of joy, spirit 
of love, spirit of light — not too late, Phosie, not too 
late—” 


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